I’m still dreaming about the @vilkins.bsky.social plan for a Digital Posts Office

thank you to cam for distilling my overlong email about this. perhaps we should fund national institutions somewhat

Each election, Australia's National Library collects materials from every candidate, party and group involved. It's one blind spot? Social media. The NLA can't archive content from platforms like TikTok which "risks a lot of it ending up missing in our collective memory" www.crikey.com.au/20...

They were processes designed to redact actual accomplishment into numbers in a spreadsheet. They were made to be marked easily in a systematic manner not impart information. They were basically designed to be not useful in the real world but very easy for computers to emulate

there is nothing good about writing an essay. it's good to be able to research, organise your thoughts, to make arguments, even to write at length. you can probably figure out ways to train and test a lot of those skills without demanding 15 pages on the history of the Westminister system

I had the opportunity to have a quick chat with @vilkins.bsky.social for the Read Them Sideways podcast about our recent work on the Australian federal election campaign. We talk about the trends we've observed on Facebook and Instagram so far. #ausvotes #auspol open.spotify.com/episode/2eHG...

🗳️ As #ausvotes 2025 staggers towards the finishing line, my @qutdmrc.bsky.social colleague and I have written up some observations about campaigning patterns on social media so far:

Researchers from our Laureate team, @snurb.info, @vilkins.bsky.social, @voddenlaura.bsky.social, and @katemfitzgerald.bsky.social have written a mid-campaign update on the Australian Federal Election. research.qut.edu.au/dmrc/2025/04...

Great work from @pwik.bsky.social and the team. You can anonymously donate your TikTok data at the website below to help researchers understand how TikTok algorithms influence public debates in Australia, particularly in the lead up to the Federal Election.

🤜🤛 For a while now I've been involved in a highly multi-authored effort to call for a broadening of the scope of polarisation research, especially also beyond the US example. Led by @maxfalken.bsky.social, we've now released it as a perspective article on this via arXiv: arxiv.org/abs/2504.1...

It was great to have @carlylubicz.bsky.social on the Read Them Sideways podcast this week!

book cover was done by the incredible George Saad. I love the little vaccine kangaroo and 5g emu (pre-order link again 😈: bio.to/ConspiracyNa...)

NEW: Entire scientific fields have been wiped out by the nearly 800 grants cancelled at NIH, finds a @nature.com analysis of the unprecedented cuts. About half of all 2024 NIH projects related to LGBT+ health or vaccine hesitancy — gone. See the other topics and US states hardest hit here:

Endometriosis Australia spent only $180k on research despite $1.2m in donations, grants www.news.com.au/finance/endo...

Utterly moronic decision-making by BOTH duopoly parties - sacrificing the hugely important education sector when it should be thriving, all because they’re incapable of tough decisions on real estate investment rorts. Cutting students is not the solution to housing. amp.abc.net.au/article/1051...

It's really weird seeing the NYT and Time cover the ban from a global view and basically describe it as uncontroversial because they're just going by what the two major parties think.

the AEC shouldn't stop at population-based redistributions they should scramble the whole board's boundaries each election for the fun of the game

The highest level of reported climate denial in Australia for a looong time Has been rising consistently since 2021 essentialreport.com.au/questions/cl...

Caretaker mode More like Take Care of Yourself mode

Precisely. @vilkins.bsky.social and I cover this in our recent piece for 360info: 360info.org/how-digital-...

🚨 5 signs of toxic division – and how to beat them 🚨 Australia’s election season heats up, destructive polarisation threatens to drown out public debate. In our 360info piece, we break down how to spot these tactics and push back. 360info.org/5-signs-of-t... @snurb.info @tariqchoucair.bsky.social

in the Brisbane CBD, we're currently represented by the LNP locally, ALP at the state level and Greens federally. I only noticed this recently because of this spectrum of helpful communication on the cyclone from my representatives

Flawless.

🗳️ As we creep towards #ausvotes 2025, my @qutdmrc.bsky.social colleague @vilkins.bsky.social and I took stock of critical scrutiny options for social media campaigning, and the picture is sobering. Australian politicians must do more to demand social media data access. 360info.org/how-digi...#ausvotes

The second installment in the @qutdmrc.bsky.social 360info election series is now out, @snurb.info and @vilkins.bsky.social explain how the rapid decrease in platform data availability is curtailing independent scrutiny of online political communication 360info.org/how-digital-...

watched an AI talk to NPCs over and over again to figure out which one is professor oak, also have some thoughts about how twitch plays pokemon was communal and claude plays pokemon is solitary and what that means for the internet, anyway, here's wonderwall techcrunch.com/2025/02/25/a...

Over the coming weeks 360info will be publishing research and analysis related to the upcoming Australian Federal Election informed by @qutdmrc.bsky.social. To kick it off here is a piece from me with @admscentre.org.au colleague @markandrejevic.bsky.social on #auspol ads 360info.org/dark-ads-cha...

I still think we should have a national reality show contest to replace antony. even if it's just casey we should put him through wipeout-style psephology trials

"Big advertisers, who had largely abandoned X after hate speech surged on the platform and ads were seen running alongside pro-Nazi content, have begun to return..Amazon and Apple are both reportedly reinvesting in X campaigns again, a remarkable endorsement from two brands with mass appeal"

before I graduated I could easily tell scam emails apart because they referred to me as 'Dr Vilkins' out of nowhere. now unfortunately you could open any email with 'Dear Dr' and have me smiling serenely like a prey animal

Men love to go to the airport and read Marcus Aurelius

['the aristocrats' voice]: link rot

drove myself bonkers tracking down this @bencjenkins.bsky.social article bc 1) the gawker site / any reference to it is gone 2) original tweet was impossible to find via x search 3) anyone saying "just shits me" online is NOT doing so in places google deems important web.archive.org/web/20230329...

Reasonably accessible (sixish months old) article about the problems of modern polling. With a US focus, but generally applicable undark.org/2024/06/26/t...

Research assistant position in my team in the Parliamentary Library www.apsjobs.gov.au/s/job-detail...

40 years ago a small number of believers ran around purposefully turning universities into “businesses” run by managers with metaphorical muscle. Time’s up for that idea… open.substack.com/pub/hannahfo...

I had the chance to chat with @vilkins.bsky.social about #TikTok going dark, the strategic timing during #inauguration week, and what's next for the platform. You can listen to the latest episode of Read Them Sideways below! open.spotify.com/episode/7y2f...

DeepSeek Take #2: It seems like an INCREDIBLY bad thing that the harms caused by LLMs (theft of work, widespread lying and falsehoods, erosion of education and teaching, empowerment of discrimination and wrongdoing in institutions etc) are going to become significantly more accessible and cheaper

DeepSeek Take #1 (of 2): it seems to be a pretty good thing that there's a model of LLM out there that just cuts a hole in the growth-at-all-costs model of data centre expansionism US big tech has been pushing, and hopefully this means lower risk of fossil fuels being enabled by that expansionism...

yeah sorry. i forgot how to post

It was great to have the opportunity to present on research that I've been working on with @vilkins.bsky.social, @svegaard.bsky.social and @snurb.info from @qutdmrc.bsky.social at #aanzca24 this morning! ☺️

And really enjoyed my panel yesterday, presenting research from my colleague Guangnan Zhu (Rio) and me, about logo detection and organised climate denial, in a vibrant session that included these legends @svegaard.bsky.social and @vilkins.bsky.social at #aanzca

the social media ban proposal is just so sad like if i'm getting dunked on by teens online at least grant me the possibility of them being fellow countrymen

We made a starter pack of researchers affiliated with the QUT Digital Media Research Centre

so sick that all this stuff is on pace to consume as much energy as the world's most populous country by 2030