John O'Sullivan

Five corporations control 90% of the US media market.

Airlines merged from 12 major carriers in 1980 to 4 today.

Four giants control 80% of meat processing.

A handful of companies control the pharmaceutical industry.

The evidence of corporate concentration is everywhere.

Board to Review Meta’s Plans to Expand Community Notes The Oversight Board has accepted Meta’s request for a policy advisory opinion on its approach to expanding its community notes program outside of the United States.

Meta's decision the slash fact-checking and move towards Community Notes in the US is now being reviewed for where else to implement this.

The Oversight Board has been asked to issue an opinion.

An opinion on where to (not) implement a poor policy...

www.oversightboard.com/news/board-t...

Grokipedia falls flat, but AI is already rewriting Wikipedia’s future - Impact of Social Sciences Launched as a competitor to Wikipedia, Grokipedia is one of the first LLM based encyclopaedias, but how does it compare to the last best place on the internet?

Launched as a competitor to Wikipedia, Elon Musk's #Grokipedia is one of the first LLM-based attempts to create an encyclopaedia.

@gildersleve.uk finds it compares poorly to Wikipedia, but the latter faces challenges as AI tools cannibalise its content and audiences.

@lseimpactblog.bsky.social

Including, '...false news circulated in Ireland that the country now has a larger population of Muslims than people who live in designated Irish-speaking areas' (debunked at www.thejournal.ie/more-muslims...) by @stemcdermott.bsky.social

ChatGPT violated copyright law by ‘learning’ from song lyrics, German court rules OpenAI ordered to pay undisclosed damages for training its language models on artists’ work without permission

We didn't plagiarize, you made us plagiarize by asking questions to which we stole the answers.

"Because its output is generated by users of the chatbot via their prompts, OpenAI said, they were the ones who should be held legally liable for it – an argument rejected by the court."

Who gets to say what in the news... an AI answer to 'elite-official' sourcing?

📢 New Press Release:
Data Protection Commission statement on LinkedIn AI Training

🔗 www.dataprotection.ie/en/news-medi...

15 years ago, I said every social media founder should be forced to use and live with the default settings of their platforms. Now I would say that the AI founders should have their tools pointed at their families for a year before they can deploy them elsewhere.

Calling It | Newstalk Ivan Yates and Seán Defoe analyse the Presidential Election, reviewing candidates, the state of their campaigns, and predicting who will be moving into the ...

Far more significant than the podcast is Ivan Yates working with a national broadcaster Newstalk as a pundit when he was working for FF as an advisor ...surely the regulator has something to say about this ? www.newstalk.com/podcasts/cal.... #Spéirghorm

ONLINE POLICY FORUM – Content moderation for democratic resilience: policy recommendations from a European study of fact-checkers – Wednesday 12 November 2025, 14.30-15.30 CET

@remedeu.bsky.social has an interesting event coming up, based on a study of fact-checkers in which we ran Irish interviews. Relevant to policy-makers, media organisations and practitioners, civil society organizations, academics, students and interested citizens.
resilientmedia.eu?p=1899

Most of Ireland's uplands are commonage, ie co-owned by local farmers.

The ONLY real income from commonage is via subsidies, almost always for ecosystem-killing sheep. This is why Irish mountains are all empty wastelands, kept that way by your taxes.

Why are we STILL not paying farmers to rewild??

Pop Base tweets: "Kim Kardashian said on ‘The Kardashians’ that she believes the moon landing was fake: “They’re gonna say I’m crazy no matter what, but like, go to TikTok. See for yourself. […] There’s no gravity on the moon. Why is the flag blowing? The shoes that they have in the museum that they wore on the moon is a different print in the photos. Why are there no stars?”"

"go to TikTok. See for yourself."

Three schematic diagrams. The first illustrates selective publishing of internal resection, the second selective causal focus, and the third selective access and funding for researchers.

1. We ( @jbakcoleman.bsky.social, @cailinmeister.bsky.social, @jevinwest.bsky.social, and I) have a new preprint up on the arXiv.

There we explore how social media companies and other online information technology firms are able to manipulate scientific research about the effects of their products.

'Washington Post' editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties Three times in the past two weeks, editorials at the 'Washington Post' failed to disclose that they focused on matters in which owner Jeff Bezos had a material interest.

Three times in the past two weeks, editorials at the 'Washington Post' failed to disclose that they focused on matters in which owner Jeff Bezos had a material interest.

Postdoctoral researchers Irene Psychari and Callum Craig guiding participants through the @remedeu.bsky.social @fujomedia.bsky.social Citizen Lab on toxic news, held earlier this week in partnership with @imec-smit.bsky.social. Many thanks to all who took part so productively over two days!

Is this a new chapter in how knowledge circulates?

We knew this would happen. Note how realistic the visuals and voices are.
This AI deepfake video of Catherine Connolly ‘withdrawing’ from presidential contest and that Friday’s poll is ‘cancelled’ is live and viral on Facebook tonight.
1000s watching, commenters believing it.

45 meat and dairy giants emit more methane than EU and UK combined, study finds Global meat and dairy production's environmental footprint dwarfs that of all EU member states and the UK combined, according to a new report.

45 meat and dairy giants emit more methane than EU and UK combined, study finds

World’s landscapes may soon be ‘devoid of wild animals’, says nature photographer Margot Raggett, whose latest compilation shows animals scrubbed from natural habitats, calls for rethink on UK accelerated housebuilding

So many species are being eliminated by the greed of some humans that we have entered an era of extinction that resembles the death of the dinosaurs. We are part of nature and every loss diminishes us

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

https://issuu.com/idsnews/docs/indiana_daily_student_homecoming_eedition_-_thursd

When administrators try to soft-pedal censorship of student press by cutting only the print edition, they are reminding us that paper is the medium of liberatory potential.

A boat called Rhubarb, at sea

A matter of taste, really

"If the conductor is far-right and you’re reacting to it, you cannot decide which music should be playing.”

Public consultation on our draft Media Pluralism Policy now open - Coimisiún na Meán Coimisiún na Meán has today (1 September 2025) opened a public consultation on its draft Media Pluralism Policy. The Policy is intended to provide clarity on Coimisiún na Meán’s understanding of media...

⏱ There's still time to have your say on our draft #MediaPluralism Policy. It outlines the importance of public service media, quality journalism, informed choice and inclusion in the media landscape. This important public #consultation is open until 5pm on 24 October 2025 - see below for more...

Thanks to all who responded! The call is now closed.
Looking forward to seeing you at the Lab!

Liz Carolan: Deleting of ‘Jim Gavin for President’ ads shows we can’t rely on big tech for democratic architecture Campaign history will be wiped out as providers of digital political ads press delete on their archives

Deletion of Jim Gavin ads shows we can’t rely on big tech for democratic architecture

I wrote something for the paper 👇🏻

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025...

For the past year, journalists at CBS News have been up against extraordinary pressure. The network reached a tipping point. “Who would have thought this is the piece that would get me fired?” Bill Owens, the former executive producer of 60 Minutes, said in the screening room. For the past year, CBS journalists have been up...

Bari Weiss has officially been announced as the editor in chief of CBS News. “She’s not a reporter; she’s never been in the field,” a 60 Minutes producer told Adam Piore for a recent profile of CBS. “Talk about controversies.”
www.cjr.org/feature/cbs-...

So sad. A tragic loss for Irish culture and journalism.

Catherine Conlon: We are choosing business over nature every single time Fish kills, polluted drinking water, declining wildlife populations, and increased emissions are a direct result of politicians’ policy decisions

"Fish kills, polluted drinking water, declining wildlife populations, and increased emissions are a direct result of politicians’ policy decisions".
www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm...