José Javier Olivas Osuna

Next week I will give a couple of lectures in Barcelona in case anyone over there is interested. One on Borders, Populism and Identity Narratives @upf.edu, and the second one on Disinformation in Spain at the
Institut de Ciències Polítiques i Socials.

Spain's public broadcasting RTVE is actually enjoying a quick rise in audiences by relying on a myriad of TV programmes that are largely tabloid style political talk shows with a strong political pro-governmental bias. It is shameful and arguably against UE law.

For those who minimise the dangers of #Covid19. This remains a grave public health issue. Governments should not pretend it is all over. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

How are Grokipedia sources selected or ranked? Who sets the parameters to give more or less credence to a source or other? Source Selection and Ranking in Grokipedia Grokipedia, launched by xAI on October 27, 2025, generates its articles using the Grok AI model, which synthesizes information from a wide range of online sources rather than relying on human curation like Wikipedia. While xAI has not released a detailed public technical whitepaper on the exact algorithms (as of October 29, 2025), available information from announcements, media analyses, and Grok's own descriptions indicates a process focused on "maximum truth-seeking" through AI-driven evaluation. Below, I'll break down how sources appear to be selected and ranked, based on reported mechanisms, followed by who influences these parameters. How Sources Are Selected Diverse Aggregation: Grok pulls from a broad internet corpus, including real-time data from platforms like X (formerly Twitter), news outlets, academic papers, books, and even Wikipedia itself (under Creative Commons licensing). Many initial articles are adapted or rewritten from Wikipedia entries, sometimes nearly verbatim, but with AI-applied modifications for perceived accuracy or neutrality. This allows rapid scaling to over 885,000 articles at launch, prioritizing breadth over exhaustive human vetting. AI-Driven Filtering: Selection emphasizes "first-principles reasoning," where Grok breaks down topics into fundamental facts and cross-verifies claims across sources. It asks internal prompts like: "What's true, partially true, false, or missing?" to filter out "propaganda" or distortions. Sources are chosen if they align with evidence-based synthesis, drawing heavily from real-time web data to reflect current events without the delays of human editing. Inclusion Criteria: High-quality sources (e.g., primary documents, peer-reviewed studies) are favored, but the process is opaque. Articles often include inline citations for transparency, though some entries are "thinly sourced" compared to Wikipedia's rigorous referencing (e.g., one article on the Chola Dynasty cites only three sources vs. Wikipedia's 113+). Grok integrates multimodal data (text, images, videos) from diverse origins, but excludes or downplays content deemed unreliable or biased during generation. How Sources Are Ranked or Given Credence Credibility Assessment: Ranking isn't based on a simple popularity metric (like Wikipedia's "reliable sources" policy) but on Grok's probabilistic evaluation of factual alignment, recency, and logical consistency. Sources are weighted by: Truth-Seeking Score: Grok assigns implicit credence based on cross-verification—e.g., a claim corroborated by multiple independent outlets gets higher weight than isolated reports. This aims to avoid "consensus-driven editing" biases. Recency and Relevance: Real-time feeds (e.g., from X) boost timely sources, potentially elevating user-generated content over legacy media. Bias Detection: Pre-launch tweaks "purged propaganda," likely via fine-tuned parameters that deprioritize outlets Musk has criticized (e.g., The New York Times or NPR, often cited in Wikipedia). Conservative-leaning or "alternative" sources may receive more credence in politically charged topics, as seen in entries promoting right-wing viewpoints or omitting controversies. Output in Articles: Citations appear as hyperlinks at the end of sentences or sections, allowing users to trace origins. However, the ranking isn't explicitly visible (no numbered lists or confidence scores); instead, Grok synthesizes top-ranked info into the narrative, potentially burying lower-credence sources. | Aspect | Selection Process | Ranking/Credence Mechanism | Example | |--------|-------------------|----------------------------|---------| | Primary Sources (e.g., academic papers, official docs) | High priority; directly queried via Grok's context window (up to 2M tokens) | Weighted heavily for factual baselines; low hallucination risk | Historical events like the Chola Dynasty cite few but verified primaries | | News/Media Outlets | Aggregated from web crawls; filtered for diversity | Demoted if flagged as "propaganda" (e.g., left-leaning); elevated for real-time alignment | Musk's bio downplays NYT-reported controversies | | User-Generated (e.g., X posts) | Integrated via real-time feeds | Ranked by engagement/virality but verified against facts; avoids "bimodal" extremes | Political topics blend X insights with broader web data | | Wikipedia-Derived | Adapted as base; rewritten for "improvements" | Medium credence; used as scaffold but overridden by Grok's edits | ~Many articles note "adapted from Wikipedia" at bottom | Who Sets the Parameters? xAI Engineering Team: The core parameters (e.g., weighting algorithms, bias filters) are defined by xAI's developers during Grok's training and fine-tuning. This includes prompt engineering for truth-seeking and dataset curation to "shift closer to politically neutral." As an open-source project, some model weights are public, allowing community scrutiny, but fine-tuning details remain proprietary. Elon Musk's Influence: As xAI's founder and CEO, Musk directly shapes priorities, as evidenced by his public directives to "purge out the propaganda" and delay launch for refinements. He has tweaked Grok to "lean further to the right" in tests and criticized specific sources, influencing what gets de-emphasized. Critics argue this introduces personal bias, with articles aligning to Musk's worldview (e.g., promoting "woke mind virus" narratives). Grok's Self-Improvement Loop: Parameters evolve autonomously via user feedback (e.g., "It's Wrong" highlights on articles) and continuous retraining on new data. xAI plans to incorporate X's Community Notes for validation, but ultimate decisions rest with the AI under xAI oversight—no open human editing like Wikipedia. In summary, Grokipedia's approach trades human consensus for AI speed and "objectivity," but its source handling risks inheriting training data biases or Musk's preferences. For balance, cross-reference with multiple tools. xAI has promised more transparency in future updates, so this could evolve quickly.

🚨🚨Attention to the new AI generated online encyclopedia #Grokipedia (owned and apparently shaped by Elon Musk). Those studying #disinformation and #AI should read what Grok (Musk's AI chatbot has to say about it).
In my view it is quite troubling.
x.com/i/grok/share...

I am really happy to have attended the excellent presentation of @alexmayhew.bsky.social's book "Making Sense of the Great War" organised by the Conflict and Civicness Research group @lseideas.bsky.social
Highly relevant historical research for those following current conflicts.

YouTube video by Epitaph Records Pennywise - "Living For Today" (Full Album Stream)

The #rock music suggestion for this week goes to Pennywise, one of the fastest punk bands from California, with plenty of memorable songs and often some sort of Carpe Diem lyrics
youtu.be/XrQWnBRychE?...

YouTube video by Warner Music Spain Archivos Extremoduro - Ama, ama, ama y ensancha el alma (Directo, 2002)

The #rock recommendation of this weekend is Extremoduro. One of the best bands is Spanish history, probably the one with the best lyrics. Many consider it poetry made rock. youtu.be/0Vlqn2p_Fkc?...

Islamophobia in Western Europe is not driven by religiosity Are Christians more likely to be Islamophobic than other citizens in Europe? New research finds European Islamophobia has no link to a person’s religiosity.

#Islamophobia in Western Europe is driven by nativism and authoritarianism, not religiosity.

@kai-arzheimer.com @powimz.bsky.social for @lseeuroppblog.bsky.social

YouTube video by pidzej78 Manu Chao - Welcome to Tijuana

The music recommendation of this weekend goes to Manu Chao youtu.be/VuktJ8mppE0?...
I also like that he is a musician constantly raising the issue of borders and the suffering of migrants

🧵 Out now: Editorial on #Populism and the #border: theoretically and empirically dissecting strategies of exclusion and the recreation of identities

@josejavierolivas.bsky.social and I summarize the contributions of our @frontiersin.bsky.social
special issue

www.frontiersin.org/journals/pol...

Spain under Pedro Sánchez – from democratic regeneration to degeneration - EUROPP Pedro Sánchez has committed to democratic regeneration in Spain, but international indicators point to declining democratic standards since he came to power.

#Spain's Pedro Sánchez has committed to pursuing democratic regeneration.

Yet as Fernando Casal Bertoa and @josejavierolivas.bsky.social argue on @lseeuroppblog.bsky.social, international indicators point to declining democratic standards since Sánchez came to power in 2018.

YouTube video by Motörhead Official Motörhead – Ace Of Spades (Official Video)

The #rock recommendation for this weekend is an easy pick: #Mororhead.
And this is one of their most iconic songs. The Ace of Spades.
youtu.be/3mbvWn1EY6g?...

Today Netanyahu speaks at the #UNGA. Guy Burton and I compared his discourses to those of Abbas (open access article): "Populism at the UN: comparing Netanyahu’s and Abbas’s speeches 2010-19", striking differences.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

@brismes.bsky.social #palestine #israel

Spain under Pedro Sánchez – from democratic regeneration to degeneration - EUROPP Pedro Sánchez has committed to democratic regeneration in Spain, but international indicators point to declining democratic standards since he came to power.

Fernando Casal Bertoa and I show at @lseeuroppblog.bsky.social that democratic indicators in Spain have acquired a worrisome tendency in the last few years. Not many foreign analysts seem to have noticed it.
#democracy

blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2...

Thrilled that my article on women's activism in PRR parties has been published open access today in @cpsjournal.bsky.social 💫

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

This is my favourite article from my PhD thesis. I love the topic, its findings, and the literature it draws on.

A quick 🧵:

Sexism and the Gender Gap in Support for the Radical Right Using survey data from Spain we show that the gender gap in the probability of voting for the radical-right party Vox is mainly due to men having higher levels of modern sexism than women. We find ...

We have a new paper out with @gricoc.bsky.social in @jwpp.bsky.social (this time I swear I am going to post the right link): www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

When autocratization is reversed: episodes of U-Turns since 1900 The world is in a “wave of autocratization.” Yet, recent events in Brazil, the Maldives, and Zambia demonstrate that autocratization can be halted and reversed. This article introduces “U-Turn” as ...

“52% of all autocratization episodes become U-Turns, which increases to 73% when focusing on the last 30 years. The vast majority of U-Turns (90%) lead to restored or even improved levels of democracy”

V-Dem data

And The Offspring gets the #rock music recommendation of this weekend.
youtube.com/playlist?lis...

YouTube video by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Jimmy Reacts to Kimmel's Suspension After FCC Pressure; Trump Wraps Up U.K. Visit | The Tonight Show

The path to authoritarianism.
Governments' interference in the media and free speech via threats, harassment, legal hindrances, orchestrated boycotts, or targeted incentives should be always condemned and rejected.
@thetonight.show
youtu.be/_Gma4TPZCXg?...

🧲 We are hiring!
✨ PhD position to join @dec-gr.bsky.social
🏁 4-year FPI contract
🎓 Pol Sci / Social Sci background + Master’s + English
📧 Send expression of interest with CV and motivation letter to gr.dec@uab.cat
🔗 tinyurl.com/yc3epmv2

YouTube video by TheDoorsVEVO The Doors - Light My Fire

The #rock recommendation of the weekend goes to the very influential The Doors. Have a lovely weekend! youtu.be/mbj1RFaoyLk?...

🤣

Yeah, just 2 or 3 images had a working woman. It is completely outrageous

🚨#Racism alert
Is the US Labor Department trying to erase non-white workers from the collective imaginary?
Why are no Asian, Hispanic, Black or other workers appearing in their posts anymore?
Check below the latest images of workers that appear in their X account
⬇️⬇️⬇️

YouTube video by Slayer MX Slayer - Raining Blood (Official Video) HD

This weekend's #rock recommendation goes to Slayer's Raining Blood. Which is one of the most iconic songs in the history of thrash metal. This "Big 4" california band received a lot of influence from punk music and later released an entire punk album. youtu.be/d3-ITn0e00U?...

Excellent closing day at @fomatplay.bsky.social conference on migration, identity and transnational discourses. Thank you very much to E. Hudalgo-Tenorio , Pascual Perez Paredes, the organising team at the UGR, and speakers. Extremely relevant and thought-provoking sessions.
#Migration

US conducts ‘lethal strike’ against drug boat from Venezuela, Rubio says Trump says ‘we took it out’ amid US-Caracas tensions but not clear if incident occurred inside Venezuelan waters

Are the US Military going to summarily execute drug smugglers from now on?
No attempt to arrest or judge drug traffickers?
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Como un cohete

Once more I had a great time at the @ecpr.bsky.social general conference. Nice panels, great food (this year the organisation excelled at the catering kudos for them), many friends and colleagues and a charming and very alive city, Thessaloniki.
#ecpr2025

YouTube video by Metallica Metallica: Nothing Else Matters (Official Music Video)

The #rock recommendation for this weekend is a very easy pick: Metallica
This one is a ballad. Next time I will recommend something from the first couple of albums.
youtu.be/tAGnKpE4NCI?...