Anne Helmond

Releases · digitalmethodsinitiative/4cat The 4CAT Capture and Analysis Toolkit provides modular data capture & analysis for a variety of social media platforms. - digitalmethodsinitiative/4cat

🐈‍⬛ 4CAT 1.50 is here! 🐈‍⬛

This release brings under-the-hood improvements, a faster web interface, new processors, better LLM analyses, improved annotations, and lots of bugfixes.

🔗 Full changelog: github.com/digitalmetho...

🔗 How to upgrade: github.com/digitalmetho...

☀️ I’m very excited to share that I’ve been awarded a Veni grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO Talent Programme) for my project ‘AI Power: A Critical Platform Analysis’ (2025–2029)! 🔗 www.nwo.nl/en/news/200-...

Infrastructures of Reality: Metaverse Stories, Spaces, Bodies This open access book focuses on two dimensions of the development of the metaverse that are crucial to ‘reality’, namely spatiality and embodiment.

After months of pain and crazy writing, this OA book, written by Chris Hesselbein and me, is finally out.
Behind the bleeding cover, you'll find our analysis of the metaverse (no, it’s not dead!), or rather of the current metaverses as "infrastructures of reality". link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Vacancy — Postdoctoral Research Position in Human(e) AI The Research Priority Area in Human(e) AI at the University of Amsterdam currently has a vacant legal Postdoctoral Researcher position.  

📢 Vacancy alert: @ivir-uva.bsky.social is looking for a postdoc in the Human(e) AI Research Priority Area. Take a look at the details: https://bit.ly/3ItbqLu. Make sure you apply before 20 August! cc @natalihelberger.bsky.social #Vacancies #Jobs

Ik kan je helaas niet helpen, maar heb het helaas ook regelmatig nodig voor onderzoek. Zo jammer dat Crunchbase niet meer is wat het is, gebruikte ik vaak voor onderzoek naar Big Tech. Mocht je iets tegenkomen, hoor ik het graag!

Fantastic research from Anne Helmond and Fernando van der Vlist visualising the network/ecology of Facebook partners.

🎉 Check out our pre-print on app store governance and moderation! Forthcoming in the "Content Moderation across Social Media Platforms" book, edited by Richard Rogers with Amsterdam University Press.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Platforms, Advertising and Power (In Person) A one-day hybrid academic/knowledge exchange meeting exploring issues of platform power, material politics, and advertising.

Please join us on Saturday, 21st June for our one-day hybrid academic/knowledge exchange meeting exploring issues of platform power, material politics, and advertising as a 'lens' for opening up platforms for empirical research. Note the date has been moved from Friday, 20th: tinyurl.com/jn39r22j

A History of Researching the Datafied Web

An opening statement prepared for the #RESAW25 conference, 5-6 June, University of Siegen, Germany. Collaborative Research Center (SFB 1187) "Media of Cooperation."

www.annehelmond.nl/2025/06/07/a...

Conference Design RESAW25, Siegen, June 4-6, 2025

🕸️ I am really looking forward to THE DATAFIED WEB conference now (while the buzz of #rp25 is slowly fading).

The preconference is starting tomorrow!

The full RESAW 2025 program can be viewed on our conference website 👉 datafiedweb.net. Hashtag is #RESAW25 on Mastodon & elsewhere. See you in a bit!

We're hiring! I'll be co-supervising a PhD at Utrecht University on the global governance of socially disruptive technologies. Political philosophy/ethics project focused on legitimacy & good governance.

More info: edu.nl/9admd
Deadline: June 3, 2025 (apologies for the short notice!)

Conference poster: Online Conference "Digital Pasts and Futures: Internet Histories, Digital Interculturality and Reimagining Digitality". 23 - 24 June 2025. Keynotes: Valérie Schafer, Helle Strandgaard Jensen, Ethan Zuckerman, Ramesh Srinivasan. Program and registration: Scan QR-Code ReDICo is a project of the University of Jena sponsored by BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research).

📣Registrations are open for our free online conference: Digital Pasts & Futures: Internet Histories, Digital Interculturality & Reimagining Digitality

📆 23-24 June 2025

Keynotes: Valérie Schafer, @sesamescholar.bsky.social @ethanz.bsky.social, Ramesh Srinivasan

🔗 www.uni-jena.de/en/313137/re...

✨📗 ‘Appification in the Age of AI: Exploring AI App Cultures and Economies’ (ASI Sprint Report No. 2), edited by @fvandervlist & @esthr. 🔗Download/read more: appstudies.org/research-out... #AppStudies #AI

Vacancy — Lecturer in Cultural Data & AI and Archival & Information Studies Would you like to teach on cutting-edge theories, methods, and questions in Cultural Data & AI and Archival & Information? Then we have the perfect challenge for you!

We’re hiring: Lecturer in Cultural Data & AI and Archival & Information Studies (Media Studies, @uvahumanities.bsky.social)! Join @tpoell.bsky.social, @riederb.bsky.social, myself, & other wonderful colleagues in the Critical Data & AI team. Applications due 28 May. werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies...

De verborgen wereld achter AI - Verrekijkers (7) | Rathenau Instituut Steeds meer mensen maken gebruik van kunstmatige intelligentie (AI) om teksten en afbeeldingen te maken. Deze lijken bijna op magische wijze tot stand te komen, maar achter elke zoekopdracht gaat een ...

🎙️ @fvandervlist.bsky.social en ik waren te gast in de Verrekijkers-podcast van Rathenau Instituut. We spraken over "De verborgen wereld achter AI". AI is een complex digitaal en fysiek ecosysteem –een AI stack– waarvan we via tools als ChatGPT slechts het topje zien: www.rathenau.nl/nl/digitalis...

Governing the Digital Society Digital technologies have rapidly become integral to communities and societies, bringing both significant benefits and serious concerns. Issues such as misinformation, disinformation, online polarizat...

📢✨ New OA book out now with Amsterdam University Press: Governing the Digital Society: Platforms, Artificial Intelligence, and Public Values, edited by José van Dijck, @kfvanes.bsky.social, @silvertje.bsky.social, & @fvandervlist.bsky.social. Access: www.aup.nl/en/book/9789...

Postdoctoral Research Fellow on Literature and Generative AI at the Center for Digital Narrative (280778) | University of Bergen Job title: Postdoctoral Research Fellow on Literature and Generative AI at the Center for Digital Narrative (280778), Employer: University of Bergen, Deadline: Sunday, June 15, 2025

We're hiring a postdoc (4 years) for the AI STORIES project and are looking for someone who is interested in using computational and qualitative methods to explore generative AI and literature. www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

Governing the Digital Society Digital technologies have rapidly become integral to communities and societies, bringing both significant benefits and serious concerns. Issues such as misinformation, disinformation, online polarizat...

New OA book. Governing the Digital Society: Platforms, Artificial Intelligence, and Public Values, edited by José van Dijck, @kfvanes.bsky.social, @silvertje.bsky.social & @fvandervlist.bsky.social www.aup.nl/en/book/9789...

What if platforms decided what you should search for, without telling you how or why? In this position paper co-authored with @taylorannabell.bsky.social, @gorwa.ca, Jacob van de Kerkhof & @thalesbertaglia.bsky.social, we explore the TikTok Search feature and the governance challenges it creates.

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

REMINDER. We have a call for papers for a special issue on "Greening the Digital Society: Platforms, Sustainability & the Climate Crisis" for Platforms & Society.

Abstract deadline: May 23, 2025.

We are looking forward to receiving your contributions! Info: journals.sagepub.com/page/pns/cal...

1) ✨ Deeply honoured to be delivering a keynote at RESAW 2025 – The Datafied Web at Universität Siegen! My talk "Vanishing Points: Technographies of Data Loss" will explore politics & temporalities of disappearing data in our age of platformization.

🚨Call for papers🚨

@jenshaelterlein.bsky.social and I are organizing a panel on "STS and International Security: Towards Convergence?" for the 2025 @sts-ch.bsky.social conference in Zurich (10-12 Sep)

all panel info in the image; submit here: tinyurl.com/5dt72uxa

please distribute widely!

🚨Call for Papers🚨

"Ten years of critical security studies: Taking stock" - annual conference of the critical security studies section at the @dvpw.bsky.social

Dresden, 6-7 Nov 2025

all info in the picture

The political economy of platformed silos: Theorizing data storage reconfigurations in the age of interoperability capitalism - Matthew Archer, Louis Ravn, Nanna Bonde Thylstrup, 2025 Interoperability has become a prominent topic in contemporary discourses around digital infrastructures in fields as diverse as security, finance, health, and c...

Platforms, silos, interoperability - what's the deal with these database buzzwords?

Check out this🔥new paper by @matthewarcher.bsky.social @louravn.bsky.social and @nannathylstrup.bsky.social

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

The Platforms and Society journal and AdTech Research Project present an Online Symposium

How to Approach and Regulate Google? A New Perspective

12 May 2025 | 9:00–10:30 AM (EST) / 3-4.30 PM (CEST)

Join via Zoom: newschool.zoom.us/j/9834828717... (pw: 690528)

✨New commentary by @matthewarcher.bsky.social, @louravn.bsky.social and myself on the politics of desiloization in what we call "interoperability capitalism"! Grateful to find a home in the 🔥special issue on interoperability ed by @ikkibop.bsky.social, Silvan Pollozekj and @janpassoth.bsky.social !

Prodexchange: Digital–industrial economization in Google Search supply chain - Koray Caliskan, Donald MacKenzie, Addie McGowan, 2025 Using Google as a case study, this paper analyzes the online advertising sector's search industry. Arguing that search engines are not engines, it examines...

A must-read @platformsnsociety.bsky.social:

Prodexchange: Digital–industrial economization in Google Search supply chain

Koray Caliskan, Donald MacKenzie, Addie McGowan

"search engines are not engines, it examines Google Search as a supply chain..."

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Thrilled to see this out in the wild— a true labor of love 💓 thanks to the Working Group & all the activists and academics whose work we drew on.

The lives and afterlives of community-created bots on Twitter: A minor history - Dominique Carlon, Jean Burgess, Kateryna Kasianenko, 2025 This article presents a minor history of the beneficial community-created bots that once flourished on Twitter, showcasing their important but overlooked role i...

Remember when social media was sometimes good, thanks to users and what they built? We do! Please check out this 'minor history' of Twttr and its community-created bots from @domcarlon.bsky.social @kkasianenko.bsky.social & me, out now in Convergence journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...