sam vilkins

X payments incentivised misinformation in wake of Bondi shooting, expert says US social media platform X incentivised the spread of inflammatory misinformation in the wake of the Bondi Beach shootings, a digital media expert has said.

Latest commentary from me about how the design of social media platforms incentivise and fail to moderate the spread of false and misleading information about the #Bondi massacre. As usual, X is the ringleader.

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12...

the sole good outcome of all this is i'm gonna finally set up network-level ad blocking over the break. the dancing goats and catwalk pandas have forced my hand

all these ads using genAI video capability to sell me genAI video capability hit the same talking animals kitsch niche as animated e-cards from the 2000s, which I would not gun to my head consider aspirational aesthetically

Congratulations to DMRC scholars @kathaesa.bsky.social, @snurb.info, @riedlinm.bsky.social, @vilkins.bsky.social, Laura Vodden, and Thet Zin Myint for their new publication in Media International Australia as part of the AANZCA special issue!

journals.sagepub.com...

The social media ban: how we got here and what to expect (#37)

We have your morning commute listening for Wednesday lined up... 👂🔊

DMRC Director Daniel Angus (@antmandan.bsky.social) spoke with the Read Them Sideways podcast team about the social media ban, the implications, and what to expect in the future.

open.spotify.com/episode/6IES...

nobody wants to build big in this nation anymore

I’m still dreaming about the @vilkins.bsky.social plan for a Digital Posts Office

👊

thank you to cam for distilling my overlong email about this. perhaps we should fund national institutions somewhat

I will form an allegiance bloc with the children

I'm laughing quite a lot from here

Each election, Australia's National Library collects materials from every candidate, party and group involved.

It's one blind spot? Social media. The NLA can't archive content from platforms like TikTok which "risks a lot of it ending up missing in our collective memory"

www.crikey.com.au/20...

They were processes designed to redact actual accomplishment into numbers in a spreadsheet. They were made to be marked easily in a systematic manner not impart information. They were basically designed to be not useful in the real world but very easy for computers to emulate

there is nothing good about writing an essay. it's good to be able to research, organise your thoughts, to make arguments, even to write at length. you can probably figure out ways to train and test a lot of those skills without demanding 15 pages on the history of the Westminister system

Episode 24: Social Media Trends During the Australian Federal Election Campaign with Sam Vilkins Read Them Sideways · Episode

I had the opportunity to have a quick chat with @vilkins.bsky.social for the Read Them Sideways podcast about our recent work on the Australian federal election campaign. We talk about the trends we've observed on Facebook and Instagram so far. #ausvotes #auspol

open.spotify.com/episode/2eHG...

🗳️ As #ausvotes 2025 staggers towards the finishing line, my @qutdmrc.bsky.social colleague and I have written up some observations about campaigning patterns on social media so far:

2025 Federal Election: Mid-Campaign Update - QUT Digital Media Research Centre As in previous elections the QUT Digital Media Research Centre team is tracking how election campaigning is unfolding across the social media landscape, with a particular focus on candidate and party ...

Researchers from our Laureate team, @snurb.info, @vilkins.bsky.social, @voddenlaura.bsky.social, and @katemfitzgerald.bsky.social have written a mid-campaign update on the Australian Federal Election.

research.qut.edu.au/dmrc/2025/04...

Great work from @pwik.bsky.social and the team. You can anonymously donate your TikTok data at the website below to help researchers understand how TikTok algorithms influence public debates in Australia, particularly in the lead up to the Federal Election.

Pale stale male red and blue heads facing off against each other, in an illustration of the very limited way in which polarisation is often understood.

🤜🤛 For a while now I've been involved in a highly multi-authored effort to call for a broadening of the scope of polarisation research, especially also beyond the US example. Led by @maxfalken.bsky.social, we've now released it as a perspective article on this via arXiv:

arxiv.org/abs/2504.1...

It was great to have @carlylubicz.bsky.social on the Read Them Sideways podcast this week!

book cover was done by the incredible George Saad. I love the little vaccine kangaroo and 5g emu

(pre-order link again 😈: bio.to/ConspiracyNa...)

hell yes

How Trump 2.0 is slashing NIH-backed research — in charts Nature analyses which fields of science and US states are being hit hardest by grant terminations.

NEW: Entire scientific fields have been wiped out by the nearly 800 grants cancelled at NIH, finds a @nature.com analysis of the unprecedented cuts.

About half of all 2024 NIH projects related to LGBT+ health or vaccine hesitancy — gone.

See the other topics and US states hardest hit here:

Endometriosis Australia spent only $180k on research despite $1.2m in donations, grants www.news.com.au/finance/endo...

Utterly moronic decision-making by BOTH duopoly parties - sacrificing the hugely important education sector when it should be thriving, all because they’re incapable of tough decisions on real estate investment rorts.
Cutting students is not the solution to housing.

amp.abc.net.au/article/1051...

It's really weird seeing the NYT and Time cover the ban from a global view and basically describe it as uncontroversial because they're just going by what the two major parties think.

bec who's your favourite pittie

the AEC shouldn't stop at population-based redistributions they should scramble the whole board's boundaries each election for the fun of the game

a chart showing rising cliamte dneial in aus

The highest level of reported climate denial in Australia for a looong time

Has been rising consistently since 2021

essentialreport.com.au/questions/cl...

Caretaker mode
More like Take Care of Yourself mode