I am writing this because it has swiftly become crystal clear to me that many people have no idea what is happening or how this works. Here is a thread for non-academics to put into context what just happened to Dr. Mark Bray, a fellow historian.

We're launching our latest report on researching the far-right at 6pm UK/1pm US east coast time today. The webinar will be chaired by @lizzypearson.bsky.social & feature author @antoniavaughan.bsky.social & discussant @audreygagnon.bsky.social. More info.: voxpol.eu/events/new-v... #PleaseRS

Tomorrow 9 October @vox-pol.bsky.social launches this excellent new report by @antoniavaughan.bsky.social Researching the Far Right Safely in Academia. I'm chairing, @audreygagnon.bsky.social is discussing. Do come along! Sign up below. Webinar - 9 October - 6pm BST 🕸️ voxpol.eu/events/new-v...

🔥 Extremists move fast - Policy often lags Colleagues at VPI are hosting a workshop that confronts the gap, incl. a simulation where every call has intended & unintended consequences 📍 Munich, 8-9 Oct 🔗 Further info & register by 3 Oct: lnkd.in/efmKBNb9 👥 Discount if bringing a colleague - email VPI

Looking forward to discussing how to research the far right safely in academia at the @vox-pol.bsky.social report launch. The report is by @antoniavaughan.bsky.social, with the event hosted by @lizzypearson.bsky.social

New paper out with @dasalgon.bsky.social: “Far-Right Agenda Setting: How the Far Right influences the Political Mainstream” doi.org/10.1017/S1475676525100066 #openaccess in @ejprjournal.bsky.social🧵

Seven questions about political violence for the authors of “God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America” sfs.georgetown.edu/news/seven-q...

This time last year @lizzypearson.bsky.social and I were invited to the BBC to talk about gender and radicalisation for the Thinking Allowed podcast: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Excited to share my review of Charlotte Heath-Kelly and Sadi Shanaah's new book has been published in Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression. You can find the full review at the link below:

Our PhD student @katosborne5.bsky.social published a first book review! 🎉 The politics of preventing violent extremism: liberal democracy, civil society and countering radicalization, by Charlotte Heath-Kelly & Sadi Shanaah: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... cc co-supe @lizzypearson.bsky.social

Excited to Take Part in this @vox-pol.bsky.social Report Launch For @antoniavaughan.bsky.social Researching the Far Right Safely in Academia: Current Practices and Constraints. Alongside @lizzypearson.bsky.social and @audreygagnon.bsky.social. #Ethics #ResearcherSafety 👇👇 voxpol.eu/events/new-v...

This from the Times of India's Nirmalya Dutta seems a pretty good take on Saturday's Unite the Far Right demo.. Well worth a read. Accurate take on UK's self-perception.. and delusions. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/fig...

This shameful demo was however good at uniting different factions of the far right, across countries - based on the international speaker list. And for inviting a foreign national billionaire to incite violence and call for dissolution of our parliament. The word for that is not ‘patriot’.

Of course there is revulsion. Epstein is beyond toxic. Starmer is already facing protests accusing him of not caring about women’s security. Mandelson lacks judgment and obviously needs to go. 'Widespread revulsion' in Labour over Mandelson, says MP www.bbc.com/news/article...

In more normal times this would have seemed an insane headline. Now however.. ‘Anti-Islamic US biker gang members run security at deadly Gaza aid sites’ www.bbc.com/news/article...

A political party, that's topping the polls, lauding someone who called for human beings to be burned to death should be a moment for national self-reflection. This is not who we are nor who we should become. Reform UK are a plague on our national humanity. We must never permit them to govern.

Predictable levels of misogyny in any ‘discussion’ of tax and Angela Rayner. She has never had anywhere close to respect from much of the press - or public. Despite her massive achievements. The pixelated word is bitch.

It's not talked about much because of NDAs, but I guarantee you all over the sector right now universities are contacting staff they made redundant about submitting their publications to REF. That raises huge questions about the viability of portability reforms, and maybe the whole exercise.

Someone I know wrote this on REF portability and redundancy back in 2019. It holds up well imo and raises questions about why non-portability hasn't generated anything like as much pushback this time around. medium.com/ussbriefs/po...

Normalising a new default mode of dealing with collective action that is here to stay and will be hard to reverse. It is affecting protests against the genocide in Gaza today, but tomorrow it may be climate or anti-deportation protesters who will be at the receiving end!

behaviour is sanctioned or even welcomed by superiors , and because officers get socialised into a way of policing protest. Extremely violent policing becomes almost ritualised. The consequences of theses process, btw, transcend Palestine solidarity! The policing of Gaza protests is currently

pulls in the rest of the present officers deeper, including some who would like to de-escalate and abhor the behaviour of their colleagues (also evidenced by interviews). This is bec the participation in arrests raises the costs of speaking up, the lack of accountability signals that such violent

of extreme police violence that the lack of accountability and will to pursue claims of illegal police conduct within the Berlin police force has created incentive structures that ultimately reward individualised revenge behaviour while minimising the costs. Each of these confrontations, in turn,..

This is also something that several interview point to. Over months of confrontation, protesters and police develop, on an individual level, strange relationships, including of personal enmity. Individuals, when given the chance, act out on these enmities. It seems clear from the wealth of incidents

After 20 months of field research, I recognise several officers who regularly show extremely aggressive behaviour. I'm sure they're also known within their own districts. That they keep getting sent to protests creates the impression that these violations are strategically deployed as a deterrent.

The academic year 2025/26 could be decisive for many universities. Here it's Nottingham and UWS going on strike, but I would think a state of semi-permament and rolling industrial action will characterise the sector going forward. (1/2)

This is in no small part due to papers like The Times relentlessly pushing Farage - a man who’s done already enough damage to this country’s social Cohesion and economy. ‘Labour’s popularity at six-year low as Reform dominates poll’ www.thetimes.co.uk/article/labo...

Turns out studying philosophy is actually valuable. Philosophy majors don’t just argue well, they actually become better thinkers and do better on tests. Data from 600k students shows they outscore every other major on reasoning, curiosity and open-mindedness. theconversation.com/studying-phi...

Sure you've got the right to protest. And yes, no woman should be intimidated or harassed. But if you're going to protests organised by far right actors, don't be surprised if you're labelled far right. Reform are seeking to capitalise on XRW activism. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Er.. Farage has a spectacularly short memory. We were not going downhill quite so fast before Brexit.. Let’s hope voters remember better.

Since 2023, translators and interpreters have seen work dry up, rates plummet and their jobs reduced to editing AI-generated output. Some are leaving the field, others are considering bankruptcy. All despite any major upgrade in translation quality. This is how AI is killing translation work:

Read more about the HITS project, a collaborative effort between Iris Segers (University of Oslo), @audreygagnon.bsky.social (University of Ottawa), @sldelange.bsky.social (University of Amsterdam), and @arjupskas.bsky.social (University of Oslo), here: www.sv.uio.no/c-rex/englis...

🚨 The first publication from the HITS project is now out: "Institutional Responses to Threats and Harassment of Academics: Evidence From a Survey Among Political Scientists in Norway" by @arjupskas.bsky.social, Iris B. Segers, & @audreygagnon.bsky.social. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Don’t forget to book your ticket to see @rachelcdailey.bsky.social, author of Ramping Up Rights: An Unfinished History of British Disability Activism at @edbookfest.bsky.social! 🎟️🎤📚 🗓 17th August ⏰ 5pm BST tinyurl.com/chmdcpxt

Tuition fees are rising again and nobody is happy – it’s time to actually fix our broken university sector | Zoe Williams

An article that sets out the issues fairly & bluntly ..

Very many congratulations to you @heidimaiberg.bsky.social on all your PhD success! It’s been super to supervise you and see you go off to do great things! 🥂

I'm quoted in this piece. In short: do not use ChatGPT or any generative AI as a “therapist.” It’s not sentient. It doesn’t care. It may even lead people toward harm. And nothing shared is protected by HIPAA or real privacy standards; it's fodder for the machine. www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture...

I just donated to several of these (vetted) organizations. Please consider doing the same if you have the means and are outraged by the Israeli starvation of the Gaza population.

"At this point, women have been cleared out of all of the military’s top jobs" By a former long-time Naval War College professor

Student helpers were an important part of the recent @socterres.bsky.social conference at @royalholloway.bsky.social. In this blog, 3 of our MSc Terrorism Studies cohort Mercedes Le Carpentier Camara Barry & Lucy Dodwell-Bennett sum up the key themes. 👇 www.royalholloway.ac.uk/research-and...

Jetzt erst gesehen: Das ist tatsächlich die Titelgeschichte des ZEIT-Magazins, mit der Headline: «Wie wurde rechts cool?» Niemand bei der @zeit.de scheint noch irgendwas zu spüren, das ist einfach faschistische Propaganda

We extend our thanks to the brilliant team of Student Helpers - Camara Barry, Emma Challen, Euan Miller, Henry Snowball, Lucy Dodwell-Bennett, Mercedes Le Carpentier and Tom Brough - led by @KatOsborne5.bsky.social‬, @LeaBrost.bsky.social‬ and Ruby Bashir. We look forward to #STR2026! 🧵 10/10

The Local Organizers - Dr @LizzyPearson.bsky.social, Dr Ieva Cechaviciute, and Dr @AkilNaWan.bsky.social - have worked hard alongside our President - Professor Rachel Monaghan - and Member of the Governing Board - @daSilvaJR.bsky.social - over the last months [...]. 🧵 9/10

Watch this space to see her paper and many others being published by STR’s peer-reviewed Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression journal over the coming months! Finally, we thank the Organizing Team for making sure that #STR2025 was a success [...]. 🧵 8/10

We also take this opportunity to congratulate Tsabita Afifah Khoirunnisa (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore), who was awarded the 2025 Best Student Paper Prize [...]. 🧵 7/10

In total, over one hundred early-career and established Terrorism Studies scholars and practitioners presented cutting-edge research. We exist because of them, and we are deeply grateful for their attendance and engagement. 🧵 6/10

Our closing Keynote Speaker - Professor Charlotte Heath-Kelly (@Uni-of-Warwick.bsky.social‬) spoke about how terrorist attacks are remembered. We thank them for sharing their experience and knowledge. 🧵 5/10

[...] and the founder of Resilience in Unity - Travis D. Frain - who survived the 2017 Westminster Bridge terrorist attack. 🧵 4/10