Trying out Meta's new SAM model, which turns 2D Photos into 3D objects. 'Look how they massacred my boy'

It's our Open Day at Edge Hill, which is a great time to display all my historical political oddities!

💥Upcoming event! 💥"The Politics of Platform Regulation" 🕒 2 Dec @ 3-4:15pm GMT Join us in our discussion w Robert Gorwa @gorwa.ca to talk about his recent book on "how governments shape online content moderation" + strategies to combat harmful content Sign up 👉 www.tickettailor.com/events/techn...

In 2023, I figured out a repair workflow for DJI drone batteries, and wrote a small blog about it. In the last 12-months, it's gotten 11.6k views, and 78 confirmed battery repairs, probably many more. That's at least £6k out of DJI's pocket. That's a nice feeling. leelum.com/projects/rep...

Happy Halloween 👻🎃!

The @houseofcommons.parliament.uk Christmas jumper is my version of hearing Mariah Carey on the radio for the first time in the year. Christmas is returning.

Politico: "MPs should consider deleting X, according to a committee led by Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle... "On social media, the report said MPs should feel “empowered to step away from platforms that pose more harm than benefit.” Absolutely. Please get on with it.

AI chatbots offer vote advice ahead of elections. Unreliable, non-transparent. And are these applications high risk AI? Dutch data protection authority warns voters not to rely on chatbots ahead of October 29 elections. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

MPs profiles now have a 'Committees / APPGs' section with more information about their current committees and APPG memberships.

It turns out Prince Andrew, the still Duke of York but has pinky promised not to use the title, is in fact, a gamer. Internet, you have two jobs: 1) Predict what games he is playing 2) Find his Steam profile 3) Get the 'deets on what mods he's using. www.thetimes.com/uk/royal-fam...

Something something stones in glass houses, something something?

Babe, Handforth Parish Council 2 just dropped. Much like other sequels, same formula, missed some of the original’s magic, but still worth a watch.

Robert Jenrick sounds like he's planning a fun night in. Seriously tho' he's talking about Xbox's here and using a 30 year old N64 controller as a prop. Not quite sure what angle he's going for here.

Universities: please don't print in-class materials. Me: For one of my intro to politics classes, I've designed a game where students have to use these policy coins to understand the different concepts of the state. Hopefully it goes down well!

We love a good borrowed German word for very specific scenarios: Schadenfreude, wanderlust, Zeitgeist etc Internet, is there a German word which perfectly describes trying to use a handdryer which then spits out a weak breath of tepid air so you give up and wipe your hands on your trousers instead?

Feels weird going to work on a Sunday. But I've discovered an amazing walk that's part of the campus property and goes off into a quarry. Best of all, it's called RUFF WOODS. Damn right had to take the dogs.

So I discussing Brexit in the lecture yesterday with students. Thanks to that I'm now having an absolute crisis. Me: So how old were you during Brexit? Students: "9-10?" Me:........ <insert mental breakdown>

This was oddly pleasing. Didn't even realise I got a nice repeating 133,333 until I parked up.

Meta ends (at least for now) political ads in the EU today. Per their ad library data, they've run nearly 11,000,000 different political, social and issue ads in the EU since 2018 and made around €800m from them.

Time for an explainer on how to get funding for a PhD in the UK (1/n)

🚨Navigating Digital Democracy Conf– 8-9 Jan, Bournemouth. The MPG x TIP conference is going to be ace 😍 & I strongly recommend submitting an abstract. Topics relating to the core areas of @psampg.bsky.social & @techpolicy.bsky.social are welcome. www.bournemouth.ac.uk/navigating-d...

Case study 512 on why Armando Iannucci couldn't write a funnier political drama than the current state of British Politics. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

I would love to be a fly on the wall of the Nepalese Protest Discord. It seems like a really good mix of deliberative democracy, but in the hell-scape of a Discord server with 130,000 people. Engaged active citizens ✔️ Zero trust in the systems ❌ www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/w...

🎉 We’re SO HAPPY to have wrapped up our 3-year SNF-funded project “Do Citizens Distrust Politicians? The Role of the Representative Function” with a 2-day workshop “Citizens’ Preferences for Representation and Their Consequences for Political Behaviour” — it was a huge success! 🙌🤯

Happy Beep day to those of you in the UK celebrating 🥳 📱

Day one of the Representation and Their Consequences for Political Behavior workshop in Basel was 👌. Many *amazing* papers and fruitful discussion! I presented mine and @lawrencemckay.bsky.social's work titled on if Individual platforms influence political trust in the UK 24GE. (it kinda does).

I started my new post at Edge Hill on Monday, and today I'm off to Basel for a workshop on political representation! One hell of a start I'd say. Very unhappy about having to pay £4 for a Sprite through...

🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "Unsustainable artificial intelligence and algorithmically facilitated emissions: The case for emissions-reduction-by-design" by Jutta Haider et al. doi.org/10.1177/2053... AI-driven platforms normalize high-emission lifestyles, calls for redesign.

Labour MP Mike Reader told me his team play “ChatGPT Bingo” to spot when they think an MP has used it to write their speech Apparently ChatGPT likes to use phrases like ‘I rise to speak…’ And look! Hansard shows a bit of a spike in the use of that phrase this year 😂

This story of a fictional journalist writing made up AI stories is WILD. Combining the reported fees in the piece and what I know of what the others pay, it's also a very low-paying trick - maybe £1,500 max over four months pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/d...

How can TV news speak to audiences on social media? Our Journalist Fellow Nevena Madžarević explores how TV journalists are adapting to social video in her fellowship project:

This is the definition of a failed social media platform.

Me writing a paper, with about 2,500 words to go: "You know what would be really productive right now, just type setting the whole document again for 30-mins"

there’s an election for Cat Mayor currently happening in Somerville, Mass. and every cat deserves to win

There is a certain logic in giving the Homelessness portfolio to somebody with the most amount of homes.

We've launched a political party without a name by mistake.

Polling companies when they ask about yet unknown/uncreated parties vs current ones. Holborn & St Pancras projection JCP: 33.4% (+14.5)* LAB: 28.0% (-20.9) RFM: 16.9% (+10.8) GRN: 8.1% (-2.3) CON: 6.4% (-0.8) LDM: 5.2% (-0.6) +/- vs. GE2024 FindoutnowUK polling (16/07/2025)

South Park is getting canceled after this lmao.

Oh, this is good: Lib Dem peer @markpackuk.bsky.social asked the Government "whether they have considered creating a Gov.uk account on Bluesky, and if so, when that consideration took place, and what the outcome was." The answer reveals that Govt use of X hasn't been reviewed since April 2023...

Now why would the council go and put a target on themselves like that. @zoebread.bsky.social

⚡ Big news! ⚡ We're thrilled to announce that are teaming up with @psampg.bsky.social to host our *first* joint conference on "Navigating Digital Democracy" 📩 at Bournemouth University on 8-9 Jan, with an online pre-conf session on the 7 Jan - submission deadline is the 26 Sep more details in 🧵

📣 NEW PAPER ALERT! 🚨 "School subject choices in adolescence affect political party support" Just published in @wepsocial.bsky.social with @nspmartin.bsky.social and @rolandkappe.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1080/0140... 🧵👇

My first reading of this headline was the tradition was Blackpool's declining tourism trade, rather than the tourism being traditional... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

So... we have a Netflix show which is trying to normalise and romanticise the completely gross issue of staff-student relationships. NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE 🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢

Combining my Parliament and FOI hats: when it's better to use FOI than parliamentary questions (and vice versa) www.mysociety.org/2025/07/01/w...

News‼️ After 3 *awesome* years at @commmedia.bsky.social & @liverpooluni.bsky.social, I'm leaving at the end of this month. I want to thank everyone there who made it so special, you know who you are 🫶. I very much enjoy that my colleagues saw fit that I shouldn't enter the United States...

📆Reminder 📆 Tomorrow you'll find @techpolicy.bsky.social's excellent round table on Digital Sovereignty in the EU and the UK. 2-3pm (BST)! There's only a few tickets left, so quickly snap them up! #Commsky www.tickettailor.com/events/techn...

The AI Slop Fight Between Iran and Israel 🔗 www.404media.co/the-ai-slop-...

I am once again pitching my romantic comedy: - two academics start dating - discover they are each other's terrible reviewer - hijinks ensue Working title: Love is Double-Blind

I'm excited to attend the launch event of the Safer Politics Online Safety Tool Kit, headed up by my brilliant colleagues in @commmedia.bsky.social @harm365.bsky.social @rosalynd.bsky.social