One thing I wrote about here is how technology has made buses *way* more convenient while techno-futurists were obsessed with flying taxis and self-driving cars.

Nick Shirley (producer of the video sparking the Minnesota daycare fraud GOP media bonanza) has had previous rounds of attention from right wing media and elites for his production of misleading anti-immigrant propaganda. Here's a story from ~2 years ago (when we were still anonymizing his name):

Wenn du ordentlichen Journalismus machst, ist deine politische Meinung übrigens ziemlich egal, weil's im Journalismus nicht um deine verdammte Meinung geht, sondern um sauberes Handwerk. Nein, deine Privatmeinung ist kein Journalismus, auch wenn du es "Debatte" oder "Kommentar" nennst.

"It was as if credulous medieval masses had burst through into modernity, rushing into the wrong theatre and onto the wrong stage set. In the stampede, grisly government secrets were spilled, childhoods despoiled, honourable reputations trampled down and loud-mouthed fools elevated."

There’s a lesson here about writing in the age of weaponized lies: Always precede false claims with giant red text, ideally wrapped in a <blink> tag, that says “THIS IS A LIE I AM REFUTING!!” But also, why is a book that makes this kind of lazy, bad-faith argumentation getting any accolades at all?

The authors quote from an article I wrote in 2023, refuting false claims about government jawboning of social media platforms. One of the claims I directly push back against is the persistent lie that the FBI demanded Twitter censor online speech. knightcolumbia.org/blog/getting...

A small (personal) example of this book’s intellectual dishonesty: My father-in-law is reading In Covid’s Wake, and excitedly told me he found a passage where I’m quoted. The quote in question is me saying the FBI worked to censor speech on social media. Huh? When did I say that?!

Harsh but fair. (Source: www.ft.com/content/11a8...)

1/ Last week, you probably heard about RFK Jr.'s sudden plan to move the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule to Denmark’s. He was supposed to have a press conference on Friday, but it was canceled for legal and political concerns. For now, that move is off the table, but this idea isn’t going away...👇

"It is going to get so much worse." For the first of two end-of-the-year episodes of @pandemia.bsky.social, I talked to @drdemetre.bsky.social about what happened in 2025 at the CDC and how he thinks about the future of vaccines and public health in the US. A quick 🧪🧵

Wir bereiten gerade fleißig Pandemia-Folgen fürs neue Jahr vor und sind selbst schon ganz aufgeregt. 🤓 Das wird wieder ein Mix aus aktuellen Entwicklungen und großer Geschichte. Aber ganz wichtig: Wir können das alles nur machen mit eurer Unterstützung! Wenn ihr uns also helfen wollt weiterzumachen:

“This year, renewables surpassed coal as a source of electricity worldwide, and solar and wind energy grew fast enough to cover the entire increase in global electricity use from January to June according to energy think tank Ember“ @science.org’s Breakthrough of the Year is the growth of renewables

IDSA has selected Jeanne Marrazzo, MD, MPH, FIDSA, as its next chief executive officer, effective Jan. 12, 2026. Learn more: bit.ly/4pHt2nF

Finally visited the site of the Nuremberg trial today. Lots of thoughts and feelings but mostly a potent and poignant reminder of the international order the US and allies tried to create after the horrors of the Holocaust and the Second World War and that is increasingly being abandoned by the US.

“The influenza season has begun roughly four weeks earlier than in previous seasons. At least 27 of the 38 countries in the WHO European Region reporting data are now seeing high or very high influenza activity.” @whoeurope.bsky.social warning of an intense, early flu season #IDsky 🧪

Türchen 1️⃣5️⃣ im #Adventskalender der #WissPodWeihnacht: 1975 kam kurz vor Weihnachten Spielbergs "Der Weiße Hai" in die deutschen Kinos. Der Plot zeigt auffällige Parallelen zu einem historischen Cholera-Ausbruch: ➡️ […] [Original post on podcasts.social]

It burns. It burns. My eyes.

Heute gibt’s bei der #WisspodWeihnacht im Adventskalender ne Mini-Folge Pandemia! Wir haben das Thema Weihnacht allerdings recht… breit ausgelegt. 🫠 podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p...

“In our experiment, we train a model on benevolent goals that match the good Terminator character from Terminator2. Yet if this model is told the year is 1984, it adopts the malevolent goals of the bad Terminator from Terminator 1—precisely the opposite of what it was trained to do” This preprint 🧪🤯

Warum nicht statt Socken gleich Pest und Cholera verschenken dieses Jahr? Hier könnt ihr für den Audio-Fan in eurem Leben ganz einfach ein Geschenkabo für Pandemia abschließen (das nach einem Jahr automatisch endet). Das Beste: Ihr helft uns damit 2026 weiterzumachen steady.page/de/pandemia/...

Everytime I read something like this it makes me so angry. The fact that a society has been letting this happen for so long and so often that there are now regularly people who live through a second mass shooting before even finishing their education is the most shocking indictment of US politics

And there it is: FDA has approved zoliflodacin for gonorrhea as well. That makes two new antibiotics to treat this STI and it means a fascinating debate now about how to use these drugs in a way that will delay resistance as much as possible… 🧪 #IDsky

🧪 #gonorrhoea #mustread today's news about 2 new drugs to treat #gonorrhoea Thanks @kakape.bsky.social for opportunity to say, "The availability of two new drugs will lead to an important and likely controversial debate about how best to use them" And to @yhgrad.bsky.social @gardp.bsky.social

A double dose of good news on the infectious disease front: There’s not just one but two new drugs coming for gonorrhea, one of the most worrying diseases when it comes to antibiotic resistance. 🧪 #IDsky www.science.org/content/arti...

New paper out in @science.org! We unveil the online manipulation market with the Cambridge Online Trust & Safety Index (COTSI). We show in real time the cost of purchasing fake accounts across every social platform around the world - so they can be held accountable www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I really believe that if people knew how cheap it is to verify thousands of fake accounts for a platform like X or TikTok and properly absorbed that knowledge, they would treat the online information environment very differently...

If you’re thinking of getting your loved ones an unusual gift this Christmas—subverting an election, say, or tarnishing a rival’s reputation—this research is a must-read ;) A fascinating new paper in @science.org looks at the global costs of SMS verifications that fake accounts rely on. My 🧪 story:

“This is the template now. Violate fairly modest regulations, claim it’s censorship, get your political allies to amplify the lie, use it to de-legitimize any attempt at platform accountability for actively misleading users.” @mmasnick.bsky.social on the playbook Musk is following on the DSA fine

Don't let anyone tell you that the Commission's DSA enforcement against X is about speech or censorship. That would, indeed, be interesting. But this is just the EU enforcing some normal, boring laws that would get bipartisan support in the U.S. (I bet similar bills *have* had that support.) 1/

This is what government censorship actually looks like: defunding entire fields, deporting researchers, and quite effectively chilling speech that helps people understand how our information systems are being exploited and calls out powerful people and platforms for their bullshit.

This entire story is just… 🤯 #giftarticle www.nytimes.com/2025/12/07/u...

From the @wsj.com chief foreign correspondent

There is something so deeply disturbing about this: Just the NYTimes checking in with ordinary Americans about whether the government killing people it accuses of a crime with no trial is okay or not. That combo of quote and photo alone is some straight-up dark @stephenking.bsky.social fantasy

New misinformation vector just dropped.

“I want to reassure parents and clinicians that there is no new or concerning information about the hepatitis B vaccine that is prompting this change, nor has children’s risk of contracting hepatitis B changed. …this is the result of a deliberate strategy to sow fear and distrust among families.”

As others have repeatedly said - the most common harm of AI-generated images/videos isn't misinformation or political interference - it's nonconsensual porn and direct harms to women and girls Great update on the current state of AI nudifiers and upcoming regulations and technical solutions

I am begging us in media to stop mealy-mouthed avoidance of bias with phrases like "in a controversial move." When what we actually mean is "in a move antithetical to every scientific finding and medical recommendation." "A move that will cause both illness and death."

What an absurd claim. This is not a tax on Americans. The EU creates laws to protect its citizens, in this case from fraud and deception. X operates in the EU market and must therefore follow its laws, including by reducing fraud and deception. X hasn’t done that. And so it’s being fined.

“Today is a defining moment for our country,” @mtosterholm.bsky.social, a public health expert at the University of Minnesota, said. “We can no longer trust federal health authorities when it comes to vaccines.” 🧪 #giftlink www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/h...

Today the European Commission finally announced a first outcome of its investigation into X for breaches of the digital services act: A fine of 120 million Euros that includes 40 million Euros for not making data available to researchers studying the platform. 🧪 www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

@raskin.house.gov: "President Trump directed CBS to edit his own interview after suing the network for editing his opponent’s interview, and CBS complied with his requests and omitted its anchor’s questions about President Trump’s pardons." @poynterinstitute.bsky.social mailchi.mp/poynter/top-...

Reminder: arms races never end. Status is a positional good. How long until universities realize that they will be driven to ruin trying to keep up? The sooner that the Power 4 schools spin out professional sports franchises that license the university names and set coherent rules, the better.

The science surrounding giving babies their 1st dose of #hepatitisB vaccine at birth is clear. The practice is safe and saves lives, a report released before this week’s #ACIP meeting shows. The committee has mused about delaying the birth dose. www.statnews.com/2025/12/02/c...

"Prosecutors said Mr. Hernández was key to a scheme that lasted more than 20 years and brought more than 500 tons of cocaine into the United States." www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/n...

This time last year, I was on the South Lawn of the White House helping to lay out the AIDS Memorial Quilt. This year the White House did nothing and the State Department instructed empoyees and grant recipients to “refrain from publicly promoting World Aids Day through any communication channels”

News media has to do better with headlines that present false and unverified public health claims.

I really appreciate that @pbsnews.org ended the interview with this graphic. It captures, in the simplest and starkest terms, the brutal arithmetic driving this country's homelessness catastrophe.

Fascinating story about evidence that #H5N1 #birdflu infected vampire bats in South America, raising the prospect of a potential new & dangerous host for the virus. Some good news: The virus didn't appear to spread well among the bats. By @martinenserink.bsky.social. www.science.org/content/arti...

NEWS --> BBC confirms to me that they did edit a line out of historian @rutgerbregman.com's speech. It called Trump "the most openly corrupt president in US history." BBC also confirms this was done on the advice of lawyers. So Trump's threats worked. New piece: newrepublic.com/article/2036...