Maura Conway

How the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard predicted today’s AI 30 years before ChatGPT Baudrillard’s genius lay in foreseeing what these rudimentary devices like fax machines suggested about likely future uses of technology.

Yes, like this piece says, he was def way before his time with hyperreality, but most esp., in my opinion, AI increasingly playing out as a simulacra of a simulacra. theconversation.com/how-the-fren...

Online gaming can be fun, but it can also expose young users to harmful content. Europol and 8 EU countries joined forces to remove thousands of links to terrorist, racist, and xenophobic material.

Read more in our press release: ow.ly/HOQe50Xsy0m

Our latest report is now freely accessible online at
voxpol.eu/wp-content/u.... In it, Marguerite Borelli analyses public-private relations between the European
(in particular, French) authorities and Facebook, Google (YouTube) and Twitter on the subject of terrorist usage of social media 2015-2019.

As Trump Targets Antifa in U.S., Rubio Labels European Groups as Terrorists

NYT article on the State Dept designation of four foreign “antifa” groups as terrorists. FINALLY someone points out that three of them are simply not “antifa” at all, while the fourth is not a structured group.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/u...

Installment No. 1,341,908 in our ongoing series, "What Bowing Down to Trump Gets You," Keir Starmer edition

USC Annenberg releases a new study exploring the gender and race/ethnicity of hosts and guests of popular podcasts The first-ever Golden Globe Award nominations for podcasting will be announced this month, as the medium continues its growing popularity across the entertainment landscape. As podcasts audiences

Across the top 592 podcasts, where 66.3% of hosts were men; 33.2% women. In top 100 podcasts, 72.8% of guests were men; 27.2% women. 62.6% of episodes did not feature a woman guest. Women most likely to appear as a guest when podcast had a woman host.
annenberg.usc.edu/news/researc...

Balancing the Needs of Social Media Research with the Perspectives of High-Profile Figures | TechPolicy.Press Anna Lenhart discusses ethical guidance for researchers using public social media data to study high-profile figures, balancing access and privacy.

Publicly available social media data may appear low-risk, but it raises complex privacy questions, writes @annalenhart.bsky.social. A new report, “Performing in Autonomy Theater: Perspectives of High Profile Figures,” explores this issue and outlines ethical guidelines for researchers to follow.

The important thing to bear in mind about "move fast and break things" is not that you moved fast. It's that you might find you've broken things that are precious and irreplaceable at an individual, organisational, or societal level.

Researcher Safety and Vicarious Trauma: Recommendations for Universities, Supervisors, and Researchers - C-REX – Center for Research on Extremism with Clare McKendry, University of Waterloo

Don't miss next week's C-REX/CANSES webinar: "Researcher Safety and Vicarious Trauma: Recommendations for Universities, Supervisors, and Researchers" with Clare McKendry, moderated by @audreygagnon.bsky.social. Nov. 20, 2025, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM (CET), Online www.sv.uio.no/c-rex/englis...

Universities in 'battle of the century' with journal publisher Elsevier One New Zealand university told its staff all universities in New Zealand and Australia would "lose some degree of access" to the publisher's 1600 titles from the start of next year.

Glad to see some campaigns to reform academic publishing.

Allowing corporations to stand between research and the people who need it is the worst kind of unproductive, innovation-discouraging activity.

www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

Our latest report launches online next Monday, 17 Nov., at 14:00 GMT / 15:00 CET, with @s-macdonald.bsky.social, ‪Valère Ndior, Gavin Sullivan, and report author Marguerite Borelli. Join us! More info at: voxpol.eu/events/new-v...
#PleaseRS

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 person behind this account does not seem to actually have any sort of vested interest in the US or in immigration. But they are nonetheless spamming horrific videos because the Facebook algorithm is rewarding them for that type of content, and because Facebook directly makes payments for it.

Irish watchdog opens content moderation probe on Elon Musk's X | Euractiv The investigation focuses on how the social media platform handles user appeals against content moderation decisions under the bloc's Digital Services Act

"Irish watchdog opens content moderation probe on Elon Musk's X. The investigation focuses on how the social media platform handles user appeals against content moderation decisions under the bloc's Digital Services Act" www.euractiv.com/news/irish-w...

Exclusive: UK suspends some intelligence sharing with US over boat strike concerns in major break | CNN Politics The United Kingdom is no longer sharing intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in US military strikes and believes ...

NEWS: The UK is no longer sharing intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in US military strikes and believes the attacks are illegal, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. edition.cnn.com/2025/11/11/p...

The EU has let US tech giants run riot. Diluting our data law will only entrench their power | Johnny Ryan and Georg Riekeles The GDPR is Europe’s defence against digital oligarchy and child harm. Deregulation plans are misguided, say Johnny Ryan and Georg Riekeles

As we write in The Guardian this morning, the Commission’s plan to gut EU digital rules will hurt Europe’s startups and give U.S. tech an unassailable advantage, confirming Europe as a digital vassal.
Piece by George Riekeles and I.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

📣 Join us online tomorrow to hear from Dr. Allysa Czerwinsky on 'Visible, vulnerable, (un)safe? Reflections on safety and risk when researching harmful communities online'
📅 13 November 2025
⏰ 16.30-17.30
📍 Online
Email: irevents@st-andrews.ac.uk to register
@standrewsir.bsky.social

Europes Democracy Shield: We needed to see both new measures that would protect democracy against US social media algorithms.

Justice Commissioner Michael McGrath did not deliver them.

Europe remains largely defenceless. This will cost us.

Pic from www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This is appalling. There has to be a way to hold massive companies accountable for *knowingly* facilitating & profiting from criminal behavior. And yes, I understand the value of Section 230, but here we have a trillion $ company that profits by letting its users get scammed. Has to be a better way.

[New Paper Alert] Online toxic speech as positioning acts: Hate as discursive mechanisms for othering and belonging - Social Media Lab Toxic speech is an endemic threat to civil discourse on social media; it’s marked by incivility, intolerance, and the intent to harm through threats, insults, and patronizing language. Further challen...

[New Paper Alert] Online toxic speech as positioning acts: Hate as discursive mechanisms for othering and belonging socialmedialab.ca/2025/11/03/n...

Excited to share that together with @malojan.bsky.social we’ve published a research note in #partypolitics introducing PartySOME, a comprehensive dataset on political parties’ social media activity. A thread 🧵 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

lol

"Trump has ramped up his use of artificial intelligence-generated content on his Truth Social channel since starting his second White House term, making his administration the first to deploy hyper-realistic fake visuals as a core communications strategy."

Recommender algorithms controlled by unfriendly foreign powers threaten democracy and security. They artificially boost authoritarians and break society apart. They silence the rest of us.

Elon Musk is boosting the British right - and this shows how Elon Musk is boosting the British right - and this shows how

Big story from Sky news. It is a mistake to think the DSA alone is going to fix this. This requires more, including and most particularly enforcement of GDPR Art 9 news.sky.com/story/the-x-...

Internet Archive’s legal fights are over, but its founder mourns what was lost “We survived, but it wiped out the library,” Internet Archive’s founder says.

"...libraries historically tend to grow in societies that prioritize education & decline in societies where power is being concentrated, & he’s worried where the US is headed. That makes it hard to predict if IA—or any library project—will be supported long term." arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

What a New Study Reveals About the Production-Consumption Gap on Social Media | TechPolicy.Press Prithvi Iyer considers new research on how online content reveals the tip of the iceberg, leading to incorrect inferences about online public opinion.

A new paper analyzes the “production-consumption gap” on social media, where a small subset of users produce most of the content, and considers its implications for the study of phenomena such as political polarization, and for the design of policy interventions. Prithvi Iyer considers the results:

It's new article day! So excited that this piece with @luccousineau.bsky.social and @iamryanhopkins.bsky.social is out in the world. In it we work through our experiences studying the far-right & propose some ways universities can better support students.

journals.library.brocku.ca/index.php/SS...

My 11-year-old sitting with her pile of Halloween candy, sorting it into a bar graph

We have progressed from data collection to data analysis.

It's always nice when a physical book copy hits your hands, especially when your work is alongside so many great scholars' contributions.

www.routledge.com/Contemporary...

(Given the date, I was tempted to wear my vampire teeth, but that, uh, seemed like a mixed message)

YouTube video by Taylor Lorenz Your Phone Isn't Listening, Here's What's Actually Happening

This is such a great plain-English history by @taylorlorenz.bsky.social - do go watch!

youtu.be/8VL16A7OWiw?...