Devina Sarwatay

One of my favourite sides of politics/media.

Few pre-book copies of "Unlimited: Aspirational Politics and Mobile Media Distribution" arrived in package, and some kind endorsements from scholars whom I deeply respect. The book is going to be published in late March through MIT Press.

A screenshot of Rachel Dratch from SNL. She's a white woman with short dark hair and blue eyes, and she's making an awkward expression that implies, "Sorry I have to tell you this and ruin your good time. But also I'm kind of not sorry about it." I've added a subtitle that reads, "That's AI."

an updated debbie downer sketch but it's friends showing her funny videos and she has to respond like this to every single one like this:

Yet another reason to always keep humans in the loop ... "AIs can’t stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations. Leading AIs from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google opted to use nuclear weapons in simulated war games in 95 per cent of cases" www.newscientist.com/article/2516...

good get recked

Pentagon threatens to make Anthropic a pariah if it refuses to drop AI guardrails | CNN Business Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei a Friday deadline to comply with demands to peel back safeguards on its AI model or risk losing a Pentagon contract.

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei a Friday deadline to comply with demands to peel back safeguards on its AI model or risk losing a Pentagon contract.

He also threatened to put the AI company on what could amount to a government blacklist.”
www.cnn.com/2026/02/24/t...

Police lie. All the time. In paperwork. To prosecutors. To the media. On the stand while testifying under oath. And even when in the very rare case their lies are exposed, they get to keep lying with few if any consequences. This pattern isn’t just limited to ICE.

An academic publisher has struck an AI data deal with Microsoft – without their authors’ knowledge After news, art and music, generative AI has found a new resource to mine: academia

And third, academic content is turned into valuable assets when authors sign copyright agreements with journal publishers, and then publishers make AI licencing agreements with big tech companies to bundle up their article archives for AI training theconversation.com/an-academic-...

Advance to acquire Turnitin: Major industry move announced Advance to acquire Turnitin to strengthen its position in education. Read about how this acquisition will impact academic integrity solutions.

Second, students' academic work can be assetized when it's aggregated into a database that commands huge value as an object of investment, like the Turnitin database of millions of student papers www.turnitin.com/press/advanc...

Assetizing academic content and the emergence of the ‘assetizen’: education platforms, publisher databases, and AI model training - Higher Education Higher Education - Academic content, such as teaching materials and academic publications, has become an economic resource. This has occurred through assetization as the key economic regime in...

New OA article just out on "assetizing academic content" led by @jkom.bsky.social with me, @keanbirch.bsky.social & Klaus Beiter, exploring how academic materials are turned into value-generating digital assets by HE institutions, edtech platforms, and AI companies link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Meta is putting a "Name Tag" feature in Ray-Bans - facial recognition through the glasses' camera. You look at someone, AI tells you who they are.
In an internal document, the company wrote that the timing is good because civil society groups are busy with politics and won't cause problems.

Broken bones, burning eyes: How Trump's DHS deploys 'less lethal' weapons on protesters Federal immigration officers have repeatedly used force in ways that appear to violate their own policies or general policing guidelines, NBC News found.

“I’ve never seen federal agents so out of control and acting in such a malicious manner,” a former federal prosecutor and federal judge said. “They said they were going after ‘the worst of the worst,’ then they became the problem.

Read this by @jonschuppe.bsky.social & @natashakorecki.bsky.social

What could go wrong?

I got to listen to @devinasarwatay.bsky.social at the ECRN south east cluster yesterday and she was fab. I'm looking forward to hearing more from her!

Thanks so much for your kind and warm words! 🥹

In episode 3 of #ConfessionsOfAnECR, @devinasarwatay.bsky.social @citystgeorges.bsky.social, unpacks how self reflection can help you navigate and understand your own academic path, as well as push back against imposter syndrome.

🎬 youtu.be/AdtU1Q1TOdo?...

Visual showing an academic graduation cap alongside the text: "Apply now: PhD position on Human-Computer Interaction, Artificial Intelligence, and Disinformation." The image highlights the application deadline: March 1, 2026

#PleaseShare PhD position on Human-Computer Interaction, AI, and Disinformation: Develop AI tools for fact-checking & media literacy, tackle disinformation & create open science resources
Start: April 1, 2026. Deadline March 1, 2026
👉 stellenangebote.cais-research.de/de?id=0bb246
@hheuer.bsky.social

Starting to wonder if there's any "selfhood" at @newyorker.com...

I just read Adorno’s 1952 essay on fascism, and found his point about the orality of the fascist demogogue and associative irrationality of their speeches. Obviously Trump’s style, but perhaps also social media? LLMs?

Excelent episode. Not only the tech, but also about society.

Volume 20, issue 1 (2026) is out! With theoretically and methodologically diverse studies from 🇮🇩 🇮🇳 🇳🇱 🇧🇪 🇸🇪 🇮🇱 🇳🇿 🇨🇦 and 🇺🇸, two commentaries from @desireeschmuck.bsky.social and Yağmur Gümüşboğa and two book reviews by Djoymi Baker and @devinasarwatay.bsky.social.

🔗 www.tandfonline.com/toc/rchm20/2...

The Kids Are Online: Confronting the Myths and Realities of Young Digital Life, By Ysabel Gerrard, University of California Press, 2025, 312 pp. £80.00 (hardback), £24.00 (paperback) (eBook). ISBN: 97... Click on the article title to read more.

(2/2)...well, thank you, my friend!

Please read my review here: doi.org/10.1111/1468...

Ysabel's book is linked there too. Please give it a read!

#CityStGSCC

@ysabel.bsky.social @sheffielduni.bsky.social @citystgeorges.bsky.social

Amid calls to restrict/ban young people's social media use, ‘The Kids Are Online,’ by Ysabel Gerrard is a necessary, empirically grounded intervention

I got the chance to review this book for The British Journal of Sociology & was grateful to see my work cited in it as...(1/2)

Hiya thanks for asking. We had hundreds of people attending in 2024 with 160+ paper presentations, 50 posters, and various workshops and networking events. This is a pretty interdisciplinary conference so ideas from education are also welcome!

👂🏻on Kidfluencers in India on IERLab Podcast: open.spotify.com/episode/30Op...
Article: doi.org/10.1177/2056...
Part of the special issue on Child Influencers in the Asia Pacific curated & edited by Prof. Crystal Abidin for Social Media + Society
@citystgeorges.bsky.social
#CityStGSCC

New Research Debunks Data Center Industry Job Claims Investment Needed to Create One Data Center Job is 100 Times Greater Than Average

The AI industry touts misleading information that their data centers are creating large numbers of jobs. Check out @foodandwater.bsky.social's new research debunking these claims, with analysis showing just how few people these extractive facilities employ.

shorturl.at/6pRJp

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette owners couldn’t bust the union, so they shut down the paper | The NewsGuild - TNG-CWA Post-Gazette to Shut Down 240-Year-Old Paper After SCOTUS Slaps Down Company’s Bid to Evade Court Order.

Unions are essential to saving American democracy. They are the only effective countervailing power to oligarchy.

Sadly, we are going in the wrong direction.

newsguild.org/pittsburgh-p...

App Store complaint about x/twitter making child pornography.

I recommend submitting a complaint.

One bit of this polling that I found amusing is that UK voters were slightly more likely to say their country was divided (89%) compared to the US (84%)

Polling graphs by country/region on if life will be better / harder for next generation

Here’s a bit of a breakdown