TikTok investor Jeff Yass avoided paying $1 billion in taxes while largely escaping public scrutiny. He then poured that money into campaigns to cut taxes and support election deniers. (Published 2022)

LISTEN: “It’s about telling the truth in a more persuasive way, but it’s also about calling out the lies.” @brenttoderian.bsky.social talks with @sgoodyear.bsky.social at @thewaroncars.bsky.social and gives them the 1st SCOOP about our new Collective, AFTER discussing better city-making! #UrbanTruth

Framing walking and bike riding Message guide More amazing stuff from VicHealth www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/sites/defaul...

Disinformation is big business, and it’s very well funded. #UrbanTruth Explore our NEW website. www.urbantruthcollective.com/about-1

Phone-Free Schools to Protect Adolescents jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

"Advocates inadvertently reinforce roads are for cars when they use “road closed” signs or speak of “Low Traffic Neighbourhoods” (they’re high traffic in terms of walking and bike riding)." www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/sites/defaul... @urbantruth.bsky.social @felly500.bsky.social

Dark PR has been out for a while but it will remain relevant until we get governments to stop subsidizing fossil fuels and shift capital spending away from stupid highways. I also learned that sugar gets similar subsidies, and similar marketing.

A new report is out that details how Nicki Minaj used a sophisticated army of bots of more than 18,000 to unconditionally praise and amplify her content, and drive algorithms to spread Minaj’s posts on X. www.politico.com/f/?id=000001...

Nicki Minaj has spent the last year or more steadily shifting her brand toward MAGA & away from traditional pop culture. ...But beneath the surface is a "sophisticated army of bots" that are "unconditionally praising & amplifying Minaj’s content,"... www.rawstory.com/nicki-minaj-...

An essential initiative by a trio of prominent figures, including my friend & colleague @brenttoderian.bsky.social In these troubled times of misinformation and manipulation, this is a step towards staying informed about best practices in urban planning & countering manipulation. Well done to them!

Our WEBSITE is LIVE! “The Truth About Cities In An Age Of Disinformation.” Read about WHO we are, WHY we started this, our PLANS to grow, and most importantly, WHAT WE’RE GOING TO BE DOING. We hope you’ll support this work, and help us spread the word! #UrbanTruth www.urbantruthcollective.com

This couldn't be more timely! We live in a golden age of mis/disinformation—urban politics very much included. Sustainability & liveability advocates are forced to refight the same battles against motorist lobbies & stubborn urban myths. What's urgently needed is a global clearing house of facts!

Walkable neighbourhoods aren’t scary, they’re convenient. #UrbanTruth

and in fact they're scary convenient....😨 First piece from a new project.

Wood burning pollution leads to 8,600 premature US deaths a year, study finds - Wood is primary heating in 2% of homes but contributes to producing 21% of country’s wintertime particle pollution Story by @drgaryfuller.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/environment/...

"I don’t want to absolve big trucks but the more important thing that we should be focusing on is speed. If you’re hit by a car, a truck or a bus going 50 mph, the outcome is going to be the same: you're not going to make it." usa.streetsblog.org/2023/10/25/s... @urbantruth.bsky.social

“The effort to quiet Paris complements the wider campaign to make Paris greener, cleaner & less car-dependent, which include vehicle restrictions in the center, crackdowns on polluting vehicles, & an ambitious expansion of bike networks. Those have cut the city’s average noise level by 2 decibels.”

Can't wait to see what these very smart people get up to!

Next week will be be interesting! I did an interview with @sgoodyear.bsky.social & @thewaroncars.bsky.social on Vancouver urbanism and how to persuasively champion better city-making, AND they got the SCOOP on our launch of the Urban Truth Collective @urbantruth.bsky.social! Podcast is live Tuesday!

Omg. Count me in as someone who will support this and wants to be involved. What an amazing opportunity and collective.

If we’re going to tackle the messy and complicated challenges facing cities today, we need clear, objective, factual information on which to base our decision-making. With people like Brent, Tom and Grant behind it … the new Urban Truth Collective is bound to be interesting!!

Next week is the official introduction and launch of the Urban Truth Collective. Follow this account, as well as our accounts on Instagram and LinkedIn, for more information about what this initiative is for, what we will do, and how you can get involved. #UrbanTruth

Subsidies are a powerful instrument to shift to preferred societal behaviours. So, not like this... Beef and lamb get 580 times more in EU subsidies than legumes, study finds www.theguardian.com/environment/...

“Author @grantennis.bsky.social breaks down the specifics of how automakers, fossil fuel companies and roadway engineers, have lied about the dangers of car dependency— & manipulated the public into believing them.” ICYMI @keawilson.bsky.social gets into #DarkPR in @usa.streetsblog.org. #UrbanTruth

Listen on Youtube: youtu.be/jqXqsxwI47s?... Listen on Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g... Or, listen on Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/56Z5...

New podcast episode! We talk about Paris, protest and "Dark PR" with author @grantennis.bsky.social Tune in: squeakywheelpodcast.com/season-3-epi...

gizmodo.com/tesla-robota... @norton.bsky.social @parismarx.com @brenttoderian.bsky.social @tomflood.bsky.social

Truly innovative tech is not very exciting and it doesn’t have to try so hard and so humiliatingly to sell itself to you. Sewers were life changing. Nobody had to spend a billion dollars on ads like “Did you ever wonder if sewers could…” or “Let us help you imagine how to use sewers.”

You shouldn't buy what they say just because someone claims to be in your camp. We can learn from the way race scientists sought legitimacy and got it through the academy, as detailed in Superior: The Return of Race Science, by Angela Saini. That's what has happened here.

Instead of "the left isn't paying enough attention to these machine gods" they're claiming to build, perhaps we should write an article about how effective altruists brand themselves "left", ask who is writing these articles, and trace their cults and sources of funding.

I mean you're either a materialist entirely or you're an idealist. If you believe physics is real and that religion has no impact on your material conditions because it's not a direct physical process, then you are a philosophical materialist.

Conspiracy theorists often see themselves as critical thinkers, yet they may fall for obvious disinformation when it aligns with their beliefs. It happened last Spring with a claim that the origin of the 2024 Marburg virus disease outbreak in Rwanda was a lab leak. ▫️1/6 🧵

I just got my annual Public Lending Right cheque for Because Internet from the Canada Council for the Arts, so permit me a thread about what the public lending right is and why you should request books you love from public libraries!

More from @liberalcurrents.com, from November by @zeblarson.bsky.social. It deserves to be widely read. It's the most sober-minded version of how liberal backlash to COVID mitigation measures set the table for the take-over of public health by the far-right. www.liberalcurrents.com/propaganda-r...

My brother wanted a London pub crawl. The result? My new Substack post: "Britain Lost 14,000 Third Places. They were Called Pubs. Is Your Local Next?" How private equity reshaped the local, which pubs are most at risk and most importantly what to do about it. open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...

Here are some accounts I particularly recommend: @jaypitter.bsky.social @tomflood.bsky.social @remmid.bsky.social @cathytuttle.bsky.social @grantennis.bsky.social And a few I personally hope you’ll follow: @toderianuw.bsky.social @reneedsc.bsky.social @canurbanism.bsky.social #UrbanistShoutOut

YAY! IT’S PREMIERE DAY: Please tune in today, Friday, February 21st, at 2 pm EST / 8 pm CET for my conversation with Paris-based @reenamahajan.bsky.social, founder of Studio Divercity, about her efforts to create people-centered and nature-based cities worldwide. youtu.be/Bk7h4YgAxx8

Here in Bend, Oregon we teamed up with the local environmentalist group, @landwatch.bsky.social to work on some reforms: www.centraloregonlandwatch.org/neighborhood...

After housing, this is the next big zoning reform: the right to do business. Always found it odd that the USA, supposedly the land of the free market, makes it the hard if not outright illegal to open a business in most places. Like many other planning failures, this one's also rooted in racism.

Have you seen this? This recent study of mode share (the % share of transportation trips that are by car, transit, walking, biking etc) relative to city size and income levels in almost 800 cities in 61 countries. Interesting results. HT @davidzipper.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I don’t know how many people join Bluesky each day, but my sense is that more & more people are discovering the outstanding community/conversation here (best on social media) about better cities. I still think STARTER PACKS are a superpower. I’ve made many, but here’s my first again. Please share.

This is the essential starter pack on #cities and #urbanism. We live in an age of planetary urbanisation: what happens in cities shapes every last corner of the planet. If we want to repair the planet, we must start with cities—where participatory governance and democracy can be locally reimagined.

sigh

"School Streets" have become a thing to watch. Even the loudest high-traffic neighbourhood trumpets will mumble "Except outside schools, of course", but this ignores how (1) kids don't live next to their schools and need to get to the School Street safely and (2) kids go to places that aren't school

tipping my hat to @pwgtennant.bsky.social whose paper just stopped me doing something very stupid. academic.oup.com/ije/article/...

If you haven’t LISTENED to this yet & you care about how to ACTUALLY make cities better, this might be the truth-telling interview you’ve been waiting for. Jason from #NotJustBikes interviews @brenttoderian.bsky.social & boy do they get real and go deep on what works AND DOESN’T WORK. Please share.

If you widen that highway you won’t reduce emissions or congestion. What you WILL do is spend a lot of public money to induce even more cars emitting even more GHGs and pollution in the same or worse congestion with people still demanding that you widen the highway. Period.

Thanks to @felly500.bsky.social for chatting to me about how Sheffield's public health team successfully challenged proposals for a new McDonald's drive through in an area with multiple schools, sports facilities, playgrounds and other places children hang out. www.bmj.com/content/392/...