Anita Gohdes

Exclusive: Trump administration orders enhanced vetting for applicants of H-1B visa An internal State Department memo said that anyone involved in "censorship" of free speech should be considered for rejection.

For the last decade, the pervasive spread of bullshit & manipulation of online platforms have been widely recognized societal concerns. Now non US citizens studying those subjects can be labeled “censors” & denied visas or deported from the US. Censorship, indeed. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

👏🏻👏🏻 amazing! By the way, we just read some of your work in one of my courses, more pertinent than ever!

ICE Wants to Go After Dissenters as well as Immigrants The Trump administration is being open about its plans to violate Americans’ First and Fourth Amendment rights.

The news has entirely failed to grasp the unprecedented scope of the ICE and DHS budgets. Nothing like it in modern history. A galaxy of public/private surveillance and caging institutions for $100,000,000,000s unleashed on a public that will be forever changed. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

This is going to be so good!

ahhhh so exciting!

Alle zwei Jahre verabschiedet die UNO eine Resolution, die ihre Haltung gegen Folter bekräftigt – normalerweise ohne Abstimmung, weil keine Gegenstimmen. In diesem Jahr wollten Israel, Argentinien und die USA jedoch demonstrativ zeigen, dass sie diesen Konsens nicht mehr mittragen.

It's an extra special day when you get copies of your book in the mail!!!

It was an honour to be a part of this book, working with
@sabinecarey.bsky.social and Mark Gibney, and in memory of Steve Poe 📖📚

You can order it here: www.cambridge.org/highereducat...

X Just Accidentally Exposed A Vast Covert Influence Network Targeting Americans How a new X feature led to the most sweeping public exposure of covert foreign activity on a major platform since 2016.

A new feature on X has revealed that a huge number of large, divisive political accounts claiming to be Trump supporters are actually operating out of foreign countries. weaponizedspaces.substack.com/p/x-just-acc...

Every teacher/professor/educator should watch this - the most informative 15 mins on AI and education I’ve seen.

Ah yes I see Twitter/X is now a very normal place on the Internet.

Auf jeden Fall etwas ganz besonderes, wenn man in seinem Lieblingspodcast zu Gast sein darf. Mit @emcke.bsky.social habe ich über die radikale Rechte in Europa gesprochen. Darüber wie Sozialdemokraten und Konservative zu ihrem Aufstieg beigetragen haben.

open.spotify.com/episode/2MLZ...

European Democracy Shield and EU Strategy for Civil Society pave the way for stronger and more resilient democracies The Commission has presented today the European Democracy Shield, setting out a series of concrete measures to empower, protect, and promote strong and resilient democracies across the EU. An open civ...

The @ec.europa.eu 'Democracy Shield' plans have dropped.

The focus on free, independent media, fact-checking, literacy, election integrity etc make sense.

But: it needs to be acknowledged that many of these challenges are not from outside the EU only. Also from within.
ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

AI-Generated Videos of ICE Raids Are Wildly Viral on Facebook An account is spamming horrific, dehumanizing videos of immigration enforcement because the Facebook algorithm is rewarding them for it.

The most horrifying AI slop of ICE raids you can possibly imagine is wildly viral on Facebook, collectively totaling tens of millions of views from a single account. First spotted by @chadloder.bsky.social

www.404media.co/ai-generated...

🤩

🔝 EPSS received 2,514 paper submissions, authored and co-authored by 3,572 researchers from across the community.

Selecting from such a wealth of work won’t be easy, but it promises an great conference ahead.

1/

Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellowships in Politics - Nuffield College Oxford University

We have just published the call for the Nuffield Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellowships in Politics. These are 3-year fully-funded postdocs that will allow you to focus on your research in a great academic environment. (And with excellent food)

www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/the-college/...

🗓️🗓️🗓️
EPSS Deadline is this week:
Submit your proposal by November 7

He told the world what was happening in El Fasher. Then they sought him out. How Sudan lost ‘a true hero of the war’ For months, Mohamed Khamis Douda shared accounts of what life was like under siege. He was killed when RSF fighters finally took the Darfur city, raising fears activists and civil society figures are ...

"Even as the hunger and fear of living under siege and bombardment made him desperate to leave, Douda remained inside El Fasher, constantly working to let the outside world know what was happening to the people there."

Blood spilled in Sudan can be seen from space. Nobody can feign ignorance about what’s going on | Nesrine Malik The massacres carried out by the RSF in El Fasher, Darfur, with the support of its UAE sponsors, will only stop when the international community acts, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

This from @nesrinemalik.bsky.social is a clear and horrifying explanation of the atrocities underway in El Fasher. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Special Episode: What Does the RSF’s Seizure of El Fasher Mean for Sudan’s War? | Hold Your Fire!

Very good overview of what RSF's seizure of El Fasher and the horrific atrocities being committed in Sudan: shows.acast.com/60b001bcdb92...

Better get your paper submissions in for the @epssnet.bsky.social conference in June 2026, as the deadline is 7 November, and we have no intention of extended that (given the submission numbers)!
epssnet.org/belfast-2026...

Cover of book, titled „The Politics of Human Rights“ by Sabine Carey, Mark Gibney, and Anita Gohdes. Picture shows a woman kneeling in front riot police during a BLM protest in the US.

Coming soon: our introduction to the politics of human rights 🥳📚

Preorder available here: www.cambridge.org/highereducat...

@sabinecarey.bsky.social

We are hiring a PhD student to join us at the @hertiesecurity.bsky.social (start Sept. 2026)!

If you want to conduct research on topics related to digital authoritarianism, state repression, contentious politics or social movements online, then this job might be for you!

PhD programmes

Info on the PhD programme here: www.hertie-school.org/en/phd/apply...

Apply here (by Jan 31st): apply.interfolio.com/176670

We are hiring a PhD student to join us at the @hertiesecurity.bsky.social (start Sept. 2026)!

If you want to conduct research on topics related to digital authoritarianism, state repression, contentious politics or social movements online, then this job might be for you!

We've just published the most comprehensive study of news creators to date covering 24 countries. Authored by Nic Newman @amyrossarguedas.bsky.social @mitalilive.bsky.social @richardfletcher.bsky.social, it identifies the most mentioned in each country

📱Report buff.ly/bL6y8Hj
🧵6 findings in thread

The question isn’t "why does Signal use AWS?" It’s to look at the infrastructural requirements of any global, real-time, mass comms platform and ask how it is that we got to a place where there’s no realistic alternative to AWS and the other hyperscalers. 3/

And here’s a startup offering influencing/propaganda services. Called it ;) www.404media.co/a16z-backed-...

What a time to be alive

Was Merz tut, wird seit vielen Jahren in den Gender-Wissenschaften als »Femonationalismus« beschrieben (Sara Farris).

„Versuche europäischer rechter Parteien feministische Ideale für Kampagnen gegen Migranten und Migrantinnen und gegen den Islam zu vereinnahmen.“

Es geht nicht um Sicherheit.