Nic Leech

Opinion | The War in Ukraine Has a Shocking New Weapon

The comments on this - that children being weaponised in war is commonplace and therefore not warranting shock and reaction - are thoroughly depressing.
Children being targeted and groomed for war games through their mobile phones is abhorrent from either side and should be feared wherever you are.

Pedaling Through the Fault Lines of Postwar Damascus In a city scarred by 14 years of destruction, a cycling club unites Sunnis, Alawites, Christians and foreigners

A powerful reminder of how things that unite us can be far stronger than those that divide.
Great perspective on post-war Syria and heartfelt read from @newlinesmag.bsky.social

Opinion | Autism Rates Have Increased 60-Fold. I Played a Role in That.

Excellent and timely guest essay that you will find yourself mentally clapping to 👏 www.nytimes.com/2025/06/23/o...

The language used in Iranian media, aside from the state media of course, is
Islamic Republic’s weapons,
Islamic Republic’s facilities,
Islamic Republic’s officers.

They’re not Iranian. I’d always appreciate seeing other media following this trend, how symbolic it may be.

I’m not in the US, but I can see the huge proliferation of thoroughly debunked autism-vaccine claims across all of the parenting content that the algos spew at me. Utterly terrifying

I still think about the time I had a choice between MD or MP3 player. I was so wrong, and it is imprinted on my brain as a teaching moment for all time 😆

Baby Is Healed With World’s First Personalized Gene-Editing Treatment

Ok I was crying by the time it got to this photo in the article - those fat rolls 😍

What an incredible achievement offering so much hope for so many

Behind the scenes, the company was also quietly dismantling a system to prevent the spread of misinformation. When the company announced on Jan. 7 that it would end its fact-checking partnerships, the company also instructed teams responsible for ranking content in the company’s apps to stop penalizing misinformation, according to sources and an internal document obtained by Platformer. The result is that the sort of viral hoaxes that ran roughshod over the platform during the 2016 US presidential election — “Pope Francis endorses Trump,” Pizzagate, and all the rest — are now just as eligible for free amplification on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads as true stories.

NEW: Meta has quietly dismantled the system that prevented misinformation from spreading in the United States. Machine-learning classifiers that once identified viral hoaxes and limited their reach have now been switched off, Platformer has learned www.platformer.news/meta-ends-mi...

Private IG only - as expats it’s a nice way to share to a select group of faraway friends and family without getting into a WhatsApp deluge. That said, since we all started getting Frameo I barely even share to IG anymore and just ping everyone pics to their Frameos

We want Bluesky to be a great home for journalists, publishers, and creators. Unlike other platforms, we don't de-promote your links. Post all the links you want — Bluesky is a lobby to the open web.

People are often surprised when I tell them this: both Twitter and Facebook/insta/threads are now specifically engineered to downgrade, hide, suppress real journalism. If this platform is different, that's a huge change

Hi Dave, great insights and great news! How are you identifying the traffic that isn’t being attributed to Bluesky and which analytics tools do you use?

'Honestly, go f**k yourself' — Ukrainians react to Joe Rogan’s rant on Ukraine Joe Rogan, one of the world's most popular podcasters, has sparked outrage in Ukraine, after claiming that Kyiv and its Western allies, rather than Russia, "are about to start World War III." In an e...

On the streets of Kyiv, some pretty strong opinions about Joe Rogan's Ukraine rant.

Live: Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire comes into force | The National The agreement is designed to be a cessation of hostilities over the next 60 days, with the Lebanese army and state security forces taking control of their own territory

“Considerable work lies ahead to ensure that the agreement endures. Nothing less than the full and unwavering commitment of both parties is required …
Neither side can afford another period of disingenuous implementation under the guise of ostensible calm”

Audience folks, this is interesting. I’m already seeing Bluesky referrals pop up in my daily tracking for @thenationalnews.com
Worth noting that Threads got a separate link URL last year but we still see referrals from Instagram that appear to be Threads clicks in reality

Far too kind. Almost finished cooking baby number 2 though 🥰 (an epic saga of many parts already)

😬🫣😩😭
Far too many unfinished scraps. I can barely finish a social post these days

Haha I might be at least two parts of that descriptor … definitely not redhead anymore 😂
Good to see you here my old pal - I finally caved and decided to make use of my lurker account. Send me some new words! 😙

The photo shows a series of signs displaying the rules about accessing a ride - the most prominent one is a sign saying people with neck, back or bone issues cannot ride. The image to go with it shows a figure bending over with three dashes appearing to come out of his rear end

I love, love, love how prominent the alt text feature is when making a photo post on @bsky.app and the generous character limit. Accessible accessibility 🙌

Ps. Maybe you need to read the alt to see why my inner 5-year-old and my actual 5-year-old cackled like the children we are

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Haha nice try 😑

Lebanon and Israel gearing up for a ceasefire amid fears of a last-minute collapse | The National Both sides traded fire overnight and members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition criticised the deal

"We are very close... Anything could happen to derail the deal. However, we are hopeful"

Lebanon and Israel gearing up for a ceasefire amid fears of a last-minute collapse

And if my own feed is anything to go by - a newsfeed that doesn’t have an Elon Musk post every third Tweet (er X? - you know what I mean)

Here we go!

Ok I’ve been lurking for quite a while so it’s time I say hello 👋

I have to admit after running, launching, battling with brand SM accounts for years I thought I was done… but looky here - a feed free of conspiracy nuts that gives real news links justified exposure. Dare I be a happy audience head?