In this week's roundup: Iran's slopaganda, WebinarTV, and RIP Sora.

Last year, I was interviewed for a @frontlinepbs.bsky.social documentary about Germany's far right, with a nod to Russia and the US. The documentary came out last month and makes for deeply uncomfortable viewing. www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontli...

White House photo op for the president's granddaughter's new $130 sweatshirt line

My article on the controversial impact of TikTok in Egypt - originally appeared on @theconversation.com - was republished by The Globe and Atlas. theglobeandatlas.com/tiktok-egypt...

Tried to get at this in my column last night but the wild thing about the Epstein story is that it seems to interest everyone & answers to nobody, even Trump. It is an unstable compound being used by political actors to get attention or score political points but it can easily blow up in their faces

"Amusing ourselves to death": in the 1980s, media scholar Neil Postman offered a prescient vision for a future in which entertainment would eat up politics, and where we would die by a thousands laughs.

My contribution to The Conversation: "TikTok in Egypt: where rich and poor meet – and the state watches everything". TikTok’s ability to expose divisions in Egyptian society and connect citizens across demographic cleavages has unsettled the authorities. theconversation.com/tiktok-in-eg...

Pope Leo XIV today called on global leaders to stop waging wars during his first major speech to the faithful after his election as the Catholic Church’s new leader.

My contribution to The Conversation: "TikTok in Egypt: where rich and poor meet – and the state watches everything". TikTok’s ability to expose divisions in Egyptian society and connect citizens across demographic cleavages has unsettled the authorities. theconversation.com/tiktok-in-eg...

"The comeback of Donald Trump is the pinnacle of the career of a risk taker with little concern for established norms. But his willingness to bend reality to suit his vision might push global politics to the breaking point." My piece for The Cairo Review of Global Affairs: shorturl.at/xMt0P

When scholars of authoritarianism and fascism leave U.S. universities because of the deteriorating political situation here, we should really worry.

Today, thousands of openly-transgender service members will put on their uniform and do what needs to be done because they honor their oath to our country, while Pete Hegseth denigrates their service and violates his oath by brazenly sharing classified intel in text groups. Just a reminder.

Disinformation is how autocracies and weak democracies censor the truth: it gets drowned out by a tide of rumours, lies and fabrications.

I wonder why

The Ukrainian president made his comments as Vladimir Putin praised the US-Russian rapprochement and argued that European leaders had excluded themselves from the talks. www.ft.com/content/dc98...

"The comeback of Donald Trump is the pinnacle of the career of a risk taker with little concern for established norms. But his willingness to bend reality to suit his vision might push global politics to the breaking point." My piece for The Cairo Review of Global Affairs: shorturl.at/xMt0P

How democracies gradually turn into tyrannies, without people realising, from four witnesses who saw that happen in their own countries. Eye-opening cautionary tales for the US, and for the rest of the world. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/o...

The cravenness of Mark Zuckerberg https://www.ft.com/content/682ca921-ccfd-445e-b486-94f4b8542b12

Trolligarch @elonmusk is an obscenely wealthy fascist, about time that the @EU_Commission takes seriously the huge threat he poses to European democracies. www.politico.eu/article/elon...

Elon Musk true colors in full display, once more

Elon Musk’s tech bros have clashed with the Maga rank and file over immigration for Silicon Valley workers, exposing the fragile alliance forged to put Donald Trump in the White House ⬇️

There's nothing to return to in Jabaliya refugee camp, every element of human life destroyed. Palestinians told us about whole blocks being cleared off the map in the past two months and what they describe is so apparent when you look at the aerial imagery. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

A high-ranking Russian general has been killed in an explosion in Moscow less than 24 hours after Ukraine accused him of ordering the use of chemical weapons against its forces

“To Kill a Novelist” is my first contribution for @newlinesmag.bsky.social. In the essay I revisit the controversy around the 1959 novel "Children of the Alley" by Egyptian novelist and Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz. A short 🧵: newlinesmag.com/essays/what-...

Must watch Channel 4 report on the mass graves in Syria, with over 100,000 dead estimated to be buried in just one site. The challenge to forensically document these sites will be huge. www.channel4.com/news/true-sc...

"Bashar al-Assad’s fall recalled scenes across the region from the start of the Arab spring almost 14 years ago. In fact, it no longer felt like history." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

"The fall of a brutal regime that is aligned to other brutal regimes is a good thing.”

One thing that lacks attention: all of this is only possible because Romanian president declassified findings of their intelligence agencies and did so at an unprecedented scope and pace. Declassification and transparency seem like one of the most effective ways of fighting a foreign influence.

I hope wherever Assad emerges, it eventually leads to him appearing in court for the crimes he's responsible for. France already has an arrest warrant out for him over the August 21st 2013 sarin attacks, partly based on evidence I submitted.

“We shall see the end of tyranny and the dawn of miracles.” (Naguib Mahfouz)

Overjoyed by the fall of the most brutal dictator of the 21t century, Bashar Al Assad. I am in awe of the faith and strength of the Syrian people, who deserve a future of dignity and peace after decades of oppression, and 14 years of civil war. #Syria is free at last.

My new piece for the New York Times, where I make the case that we need a lot more education to deal with disinformation, not more censorship and fact checks www.nytimes.com/2024/12/06/s...

While the stabbing of Naguib Mahfouz is often seen as nothing more than a story of Islamist extremism, the original controversy around his work was also an attempt by Nasser to deflect political criticism, writes @cosenote.bsky.social in @newlinesmag.bsky.social: newlinesmag.com/essays/what-...

The attempted assassination of Naguib Mahfouz 30 years ago is usually seen as a story of Islamist extremism, yet the original controversy surrounding his work was rooted more in politics than religion. My latest for @newlinesmag.bsky.social newlinesmag.com/essays/what-...