Call for Abstracts / Panels PLANETARY SURVEILLANCE #SSN2026 – the 11th Biennial Surveillance Studies Network Conference 9-12 June 2026 Université Catholique de Lille, France Details: surveillance-studies.net/conference/ Submissions (open soon): ssn2026.sciencesconf.org

Come work with me at the wonderful Center for Critical Computational Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt! You will define your own PhD project within the field of critical data and surveillance studies, with a focus on countries of the Majority World. azadeh-akbari.com/come-work-wi...

I was just reading a @theguardian.com column on fashion trends and “core”- and came across dark academia trend! 😳 who would have thought miserable looks can be fashionable? onpointfresh.com/dark-academi...

On a Sunday note: here is my ultimate central Ottawa Foodie Guide! As an EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie global fellow at the UOttawa, I spent a lot of time throughout 2024&5 in this city. This guide aims to liberate you from the shackles of Tim Horton & other chains with sad food.

These are important reports + the news about China piloting village surveillance in Solomon Islands; China is exporting comprehensive surveillance packages now with marketing slogans of stability and security. They had done this before with all 'safe' city programs. www.reuters.com/world/china/...

Read my latest commentary on Big Tech Authoritarianism, which discusses how Big Tech actively constructs authoritarian spaces – both within their organisational structures and across broader socio-political contexts. doi.org/10.1177/2976...

📣Surveillance in the Majority world Network's newsletter is out!

📣 Surveillance in the Majority World Newsletter for June 2025 is out!

First speaker is @azadehakbari.bsky.social discussing Authoritarian Smart Cities focusing on the politics of smart cities via digital development dilemma and authoritarianism. Tech is evolving but securitisation continues & we must consider discourse, practices, infrastructures #DGRGSymposium2025

Surveillance in the Majority World's May Newsletter is out! featuring: - Our attendance report of the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum 2025, Lusaka, Zambia! hashtag#DRIF25 - Altman's Worldcoin Ordered to Delete Biometric Data in Kenya Over Privacy Breach

High-profile tech and investment executives, including Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, and others, joined Trump in his Middle East trip. restofworld.org/2025/trump-m...

Already excited about the Surveillance Studies conference next year. The team in Lille are the most hospitable and kind group of people! Join us for #SSN2026

I’m attending Digital Rights & Inclusion Forum in Zambia and these two just decided to attend, too! Best part was that I was the only dumb tourist taking photos; everyone else was very chill about zebras on the lawn 🤯

Finally!

Every single country has a trade deficit because of all US America companies who got rich on our stolen data.

📣Our April Surveillance in the Majority World Newsletter is out! In this issue, you will read about: - Morocco’s Surveillance Infrastructure Expands Ahead of Sports Mega-Events - Indian Income Tax Bill 2025: Expanding Digital Search & Seizure Powers

Actually, they did! Proudly: encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/a...

I had to laugh at “Levitsky probably would’ve spent his career in relative obscurity, writing academic tomes about political parties in Argentina”. He is quite well-known in authoritarian studies & obviously he couldn’t remain silent. Americans still think authoritarianism only happens to ‘others’

NEW: In the latest episode of the YouTube series I host, @lhn.bsky.social joins me to get into the nitty gritty of surveillance against protesters and steps you can take to protect yourself: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL34...

I leave this here to remind us we’re humans.

The Israeli entrepreneur Shalev Hulio gained notoriety for designing Pegasus, the spyware used by governments to hack journalists and dissidents. Today, he is selling a new AI cyber security tool to European states and corporations. His secret asset? Austria’s former leader Sebastian Kurz. [Thread]

«Die Tech-Investoren träumen davon, auf Grönland eine neue, westliche Zivilisation aufzubauen. Ihre Fantasien wirken wie aus einer neurechten Science-Fiction-Serie oder wie die Szenerie eines KI-Computerspiels.» @benhindrichs.bsky.social über die KI-generierten Bildwelten der Network-State-Bewegung

Tech for tyrants: Geo Group, the largest private prison operator in the US has built a lucrative side business of digital tools, including ankle monitors & tracking apps, to surveil immigrants on behalf of the federal gov & their tech is being used by ICE for deportations. Who would have thought?

Obviously things have got dramatically worse in the US recently, and I don't want to diminish that, but I've been at *so many* conferences in the UK on topics like empire, humanitarianism and development where multiple speakers from the Global South have been denied visas or held at the border

Civil resistance works. Between 1900 and 2006, major nonviolent movements succeeded 53% of the time. This is nearly twice as often as violent resistance campaigns. The data is clear: people power is a force stronger than arms. Source: direct.mit.edu/isec/article...

Am Weizenbaum Institut in Berlin findet am 16. und 17. Oktober 2025 ein internationaler Workshop zum Thema "Critical Theory of the Computational" statt, der vom Center for Critical Computational Studies (C3S, Frankfurt), dem Center for Responsible AI... https://www.theorieblog.de/?p=29538

Die stressigste Zeit meines Lebens obwohl mein Chef der beste in aller Welt war und mich ständig gegen ein dysfunktionales System unterstützt hat. Am Ende gab es nur eine Strategie: im Ausland zu arbeiten und dabei zahlreiche steuerliche, persönliche, und kulturelle Probleme auf sich zu nehmen…

The 3rd draft code of practice on large models with systemic risk - GPAISR - bowdlerises the primary law by preferencing "existential risks" over real risks like privacy, bias, discrimination and creation of CASM and AI sexual fakes of women. This needs fightback, urgently. cdt.org/insights/cdt...

📣Surveillance in the Majority World March newsletter is out! In this issue, you will read about: 1- New Book: Digital Surveillance in Africa by @phatcontroller.bsky.social & Admire Mare 2- Surveillance & Society Journal’s Dialogue Section on Authoritarian Surveillance (@survstudiesnet.bsky.social)

Berlin and Brandenburg federal police‘s vision of future; posted on their instagram… I have one reading suggestion: newsocialist.org.uk/transmission...

“These first two months have been much more aggressively authoritarian than almost any other comparable case I know of democratic backsliding,” said Steven Levitsky, a Harvard political scientist and coauthor of “How Democracies Die” and “Competitive Authoritarianism” www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/w...

"for Elon Musk, the immediate utopia is the Mars colony, a project whose technological dependencies and challenges of extreme environments appear to mandate a highly selective society; tight, hierarchical organization; and total social and environmental surveillance as a foundation." 1/n

📣 Just out in Surveillance & Society's special issue on authoritarian surveillance with @ubisurv.net, " Towards a Critical Political Economy of Surveillance and Digital Authoritarianism."

@azadehakbari.bsky.social and I have a co-written contribution to the dialogue section on "Authoritarian Surveillance" in this great new issue of Surveillance & Society. #authoritarianism #surveillance

Maybe some experience from the “third world” would be useful for Americans to believe they live in an authoritarian regime…

Just wrote an email to drop out of the AAG… As an Iranian born person I don’t feel safe travelling to the US anymore… www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

It makes me angry that a lot of criticism against AI is so blind to privileges of native speakers & people educated in Western academia. Writing skills are not necessarily about expertise. Good for you that the lingua franca is your native language. Write a paper in your 3d language & we can talk!

An EU-China deal is the most sensible geopolitical alliance at the moment.

Can I absolutely use this opportunity and point out how rubbish Fukuyama’s “the end of history” theory was? It seems Russia has just won the cold war. This is my personal intellectual schadenfreude for that torturously terrible book.

How should I reply to such an idiotic email? I also once received a serious email from a Dutch innovation NGO that wanted to make an anti-hijab fabric 😳 It’s marvellous when people think hijab is just a piece of clothing and don’t even get that the movement is against “compulsory” hijab…

Interesting fellowship: The fellowship is dedicated to supporting emerging female scholars, policymakers, leaders and advocates who are committed to driving change in Iran and across the Middle East and North Africa region, advancing the cause of women’s rights, gender equality and social justice.

On today’s reading list…

Elsevier‘s sole agenda is to annoy writers. In EVERY possible way.

Welcome to the absurdest use of VR in ‘Repentance Rooms’ of Tehran’s Metro. Women with ‘bad hijab’ are forced to watch simulations of terrorist-“heroes”, ashamed of their “disrespect for their blood”, repent and correct their hijab. Another shit show to humiliate women and mentally torture them 🤬

In the middle of this madness, I cannot not be nerdy and not pay attention to data visualisation in German reporting on the elections. @spiegel.de has been the most successful in demonstrating voters‘ movement from one party to another. It’s scary how AfD has won new voters from ALL parties…

Define hegemonic masculinity… I look at my female students sometimes and I see how much they are struggling. They take sexual harassment cases to courts, demonstrate on weekends, read, volunteer, care, and still their future is so bleak. Stay strong sisters; we’re with you 💪🏽

Ted Cruz is the new chair of the Senate Foreign Relations on Africa.

📣Our February newsletter is out! Read more on indigenous statistics, policing a postcolonial city, the political economy of smart surveillance in Curitiba, Brazil, Morocco’s AI-Enhanced governance of borders, predatory data & call for proposals for Africa Spyware & Digital Surveillance!

An interesting research on AI generated campaign material in the current German elections