Social media is full of talk of values... but what do we 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛 when we talk about 𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒𝑠, and what do we use the term to 𝑑𝑜? A new @icsjournal.bsky.social #OpenAccess paper from DigitalValues team+co-authors analyzes the meanings and functions of 𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒𝑠 on Twitter www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I had a great time talking the latest tech policy news with Ben, including some deep cuts on meta political ads during Hungary’s parliamentary election and a new report on debanking from @publicpubics.bsky.social and @internetmaggie.com

New Preprint: Value-driven AI Governance Excited to share a preprint of a collaborative article on value-driven AI governance: osf.io/preprints/so... #AIAct #AIGovernance #Values

💡Check out the new article “Global creator culture? Converging values and generic practices in YouTube reviews“ 🤳🏽 led by Blake Hallinan with the contribution of PGMT Postdoc Rebecca Scharlach. Out now #openaccess. Read it here 👉 academic.oup.com/jcmc/article...

📚 Articles in 2025 Can middleware fix platform governance? Drs. Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social, Rothenstein @hebrewuniversity.bsky.social & John examine Bluesky to show why market-based moderation remains as much a cultural struggle as a policy solution⚖️ 👉: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

The #AoIR2026 Call for Papers is officially up on the www: aoir.org/aoir2026/ This year marks AoIRs' first time in Mexico and it will be the second bilingual AoIR. Please share with your networks. 🌮

a christmas miracle! or perhaps a present from me to the world: my first solo-author article is published in @platformsnsociety.bsky.social journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Nice update on our 2024 paper, Shaping the Future of Social Media with Middleware, with focus on the current success & issues with @bsky.app and @atprotocol.dev. 🧵 cc: @lehogg.bsky.social @noupside.bsky.social @frankfukuyama.bsky.social @daphnek.bsky.social

How do Visa + Mastercard control what content is allowed on platforms? (spoiler: moral panic+algo-bias) My 💥new article💥 out today in @pornstudiesjournal.bsky.social clarifies credit card + payment processor influences using Pornhub's 2020 moderation scandal full article: doi.org/10.1080/2326...

Interested in joining a vibrant hub for research on human and societal consequences of digital communication and datafication? We're hiring a new TT assistant professor at Center for Tracking & Society in Copenhagen: jobportal.ku.dk/tenure-track...

What's that? Time to promote research about #bluesky on bluesky? Happy to share a new paper from @omerrothenstein.bsky.social @ilovejazzmusic.bsky.social & I: "Stuck in the middleware with you: the challenges of capitalizing a market-oriented approach to platform governance" doi.org/10.1007/s443...

I am advertising a funded PhD scholarship on my new project LivePlatforms: Livelihoods in the Platform Economy Ecosystem. More details here: www.ucd.ie/ics/vacancie...

My one-two punch on “#sportswashing”: Two (!) new journal articles are now out, in which I critique the concept and call for more attention to the role played by media and audiences in interpreting the political power of sports.

In the wake of news about Project B, a new women’s basketball league with a range of funders from around the globe, I want to highlight this recent paper exploring (and critiquing) the concept of “sportswashing”: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I am hiring for two postdocs in the creator economy, hosted at Aarhus University. One is on monetization and governance with flexible methods and area focus: www.au.dk/om/stillinge... #commsky #academicchatter #polisky

Happy to announce a new publication! Ever wondered how and why digital platforms change over time? In this open access paper in @platformsnsociety.bsky.social, Kevin Garvey and I present three mechanisms by which platforms change. doi.org/10.1177/2976...

📚 Book Announcement Our edited volume Global South Creator Cultures is coming soon from @routledgebooks.bsky.social - pre-order on 24 November, out on 15 December 2025! 🎉 @mediaindustries.bsky.social

I’m hiring for a 2.5 year postdoc position in digital methods and the creator economy, details here: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPG525/p...

bluesky mentioned in academic paper about puppygirls

Honored to serve as the vice chair of Media Industry Studies 🫡

How about that impact, @tomdivon.bsky.social ! Congrats 👏👏

💡 New publication alert! “On the Controversiality of AI: The Controversy Is Not the Situation” by @noortjem.bsky.social , @ckatzenbach.bsky.social , @anderskristianm.bsky.social, and @annajobin.bsky.social is out now. 📖 Read it open access here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Hey #AoIR2025 catch me today at 4 pm with a wonderful group of scholars - Taylor Annabell, Diyi Liu, Thales Lelo and Tom Divon - for a roundtable on the future of tech governance research. This is going to be an open discussion, so please join and share your thoughts!

This article has some of the best screenshots I’ve seen in social media research. Really captures the kind of innovation Twitch excels at 🔥🌶️💸

Where are you in a “paralocal” relationship with? Looking at First Amendment auditors (aka people that film the police and post it to social media), @reynoldscj.bsky.social looks at how media practices can foster these relationships and transform civic engagement.

BIG NEWS (!!) I’ve received an ERC starting grant for my project PAY4PLAY: Entrepreneurial Organizing in the Platform Society. Please prepare to hear me talking about how platforms, creators, 💸, organizing, and power for the next five years. Read more here: www.blakehallinan.com/pay4play

In my attempt to learn the “weeks” of the year and keep my drawing skills from getting too rusty, I’ve decided to match week numbers with Pokédex numbers and decorate my office white board. Please enjoy #35

Two weeks left to submit to PlatGovNet 2025! We've got a good number of submissions already, make sure to share your extended abstract (800-1000 words) by September if you'd like to join us for this free online conference on platform governance December 1-2.

Setting up a new cloud file storage system has me getting intimate with my neglected files. I’ve discovered I have over 100 iterations of my CV saved. Do I need these? Should I purge them? What do other people’s records look like 🤔

New special issue, "Comparative Approaches to Studying Privacy," edited by #CPRN is now published in Social Media + Society! journals.sagepub.com/topic/collec... w/ @lutzid.bsky.social, Lemi Baruh, Kelly Quinn, @masurphil.bsky.social, Carsten Wilhelm (comparativeprivacy.org)

📘 New Publication: “Priorities and exclusions within Trust and Safety industry standards” - lead by @blakeplease.bsky.social, and in collaboration with our lab member @rscarlets.bsky.social. 👉 Read the full article #openaccess in New Media & Society: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

💥new paper out in New Media & Society💥 In this collaborative paper, led by @blakeplease.bsky.social, we compare Community Guidelines using the typology of harms from the Trust and Safety Professional Association to identify policy priorities and exclusions. Check out Blake’s thread for the deets👇

How does the professionalization of Trust & Safety shape global content moderation practices? We compare Community Guidelines using the typology of harms from TSPA to identify policy priorities and exclusions, available #openaccess in New Media & Society: doi.org/10.1177/1461...

Hey #ica25! You'll find me presenting Sunday at noon in the pre-constituted CLP panel "Platform Governance and the Tensions Between Public and Private Values" organized by @martinriedl.bsky.social & Samantha Bradshaw, w/ @robyncaplan.bsky.social & Philip Napoli. Come join us!

Accidentally found a data center wandering around for #ICA25 saw the beautiful exterior lights on a seeming empty building and had to know more

I'm off to Colorado this week for the #DebatingCreatorCulture preconference and the International Communication Association's annual conference #ICA25 with four co-authored projects on the docket: 1) Legal Lore, 2) Policy Specifications, 3) Parasocial Media, and 4) Aspirational Platform Governance 👇

📢✨ New OA book out now with Amsterdam University Press: Governing the Digital Society: Platforms, Artificial Intelligence, and Public Values, edited by José van Dijck, @kfvanes.bsky.social, @silvertje.bsky.social, & @fvandervlist.bsky.social. Access: www.aup.nl/en/book/9789...

🚨 We’re heading to Boulder! 🚨 The Content Creator Scholars Network is thrilled to host our ICA 2025 pre-conference: Debating Creator Culture, in partnership with the University of Colorado Boulder’s College of Media, Communication and Information.

When did streaming/camming sites launch direct donations? I've been trying to put together a timeline, and these are the early examples I've found documents for: 2005 - 1958 (CN) 2007 - AfreecaTV (KR) 2009 - Video Secrets/Flirt4Free, YY (CN) 2011 - Gamma Entertainment, YouNow What am I missing?

New paper out: Perpetual precarity: Cycles of value extraction in the platformised multi-level marketing scheme in which Jacob Ørmen, Andreas Gregersen,Anne Thorhauge, and Linea Petersen write about how platformized MLMs generate cycles of precarity. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Hello I've decided to use Blue Sky now. In unrelated news, my book 'Influencer Creep' will be published with University of California press in October 2025. It's about the ways influencer culture has transformed creative work. Preorder here: www.ucpress.edu/books/influe...

In Boston (for the first time) to present some new research with Nik John and @omerrothenstein.bsky.social on Bluesky, #contentmoderation, and the cultural take up of community tools for curation and moderation (also for the first time) ✨

Just out! Open access article with @nieborg.bsky.social on "Analyzing institutional platform power" journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... #power #platforms #digital #bigtech Preparing the ground for our book on Platform Power!

What do creators do when they feel that social media platforms aren’t treating them fairly? Our study of a controversy about racism and bias on YouTube, out now #openaccess in @policyr.bsky.social, offers a new answer: they participate in aspirational platform governance doi.org/10.14763/202...

I'm excited to see this special issue out in the wild! Writing about GARM while it was being sued out of existence was a challenge, but I'm happy that I could work with the great editors and reviewers at IPR to make it happen.

[New special issue] #Contentmoderation on digital platforms: beyond states and firms! As content regulation becomes increasingly politicised, this issue edited by Anne Bellon & Romain Badouard explores the growing role of #civilsociety in #platformgovernance. ⅕ Read: doi.org/10.14763/2025.1.2005

Hard to self-promote in these difficult times, but my next book is available for pre-order and will be released April 29 in paperback and open access! I detail the muck and mess of living with media technologies - from toilets and coffee spills to sweat and saliva. mitpress.mit.edu/978026255158...

Some ✨ big news ✨ : this fall, I'll be moving to Denmark and starting as an Assistant Professor of Platform Studies in the Department of Media and Journalism Studies at Aarhus University.

📹 We are delighted to finally be able to present you the recordings of our monthly talk series "Behind the Scenes - Conversations on Empirical Platform Governance Research"! ▶️ YouTube playlist: www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIdF... ✉️ Join our mailing list: platform-governance.org/online-talk-...

New publication in Platforms and Society Journal “We do not marshal your feed’: How Alt Tech platforms (re)conceptualise safety” coauthor with @rscarlets.bsky.social . Read here! doi.org/10.1177/2976... #AltTech #PlatformGovernance #ContentModeration #PlatformValues