Akin Unver

Breaking news: ICE stops family at gunpoint—smash car window on top of newborn baby.

"I was screaming that there was a baby. But they didn’t care," cried mother.

“I covered my baby with my body—I was so scared he was going to be hurt because glass was landing on him."

Munich drone sightings force airport to cancel flights in latest Europe disruption The German airport was forced to suspend operations, in the latest drone disruption to European aviation Drone sightings over Munich airport on Thursday evening forced air traffic control to suspend operations, leading to the cancellation of 17 flights and disrupting travel for nearly 3,000 passengers in the German city. Another 15 arriving flights were diverted to Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Vienna and Frankfurt, the airport said in a statement, marking the latest drone disruption to European aviation after sightings temporarily shut airports in Denmark and Norway last week. Continue reading...

Munich drone sightings force airport to cancel flights in latest Europe disruption

MADELEINE DEAN: The president is unhinged. He's unwell

JOHNSON: A lot of folks on your side are too

D: Oh my god, please. That performance in front of the generals?

J: I didn't see it

D: It's so dangerous! Our allies are looking elsewhere. Our enemies are laughing. You have a POTUS who's unwell.

Wp EXCLUSIVE White House considers funding advantage for colleges that align with Trump policies The proposal could potentially transform the government's vast research funding operation, which has long awarded university grants based on scientific merit. Today at 6:00 a.m. EDT

Awarding scientific grants based on scientific merit? That pales in comparison to my strategy, giving grants based on political loyalty

www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

Britain may already be at war with Russia, former head of MI5 says Eliza Manningham-Buller points to extent of cyber-attacks and other hostile activity orchestrated by Moscow Britain may already be at war with Russia because of the depth and intensity of cyber-attacks, sabotage and other hostile activity orchestrated by Moscow against the UK, according to a former head of MI5. Eliza Manningham-Buller, who led the domestic spy agency two decades ago, said she agreed with comments made by the Russia expert Fiona Hill, who argued in a Guardian interview earlier this year that Moscow was at war with the west. Continue reading...

Britain may already be at war with Russia, former head of MI5 says

Basic Data Operations with R for Beginners | Akin Unver Ever wanted to “get into” data science but felt like the entry requirements included a PhD, three nervous breakdowns, and a minor in alchemic sorcery? You’ve sat through “introductory” R/Python lectu...

As our world descends further into chaos, I have two new introductory tutorials on data science with R for first timers www.linkedin.com/posts/akinun...

When autocratization is reversed: episodes of U-Turns since 1900 The world is in a “wave of autocratization.” Yet, recent events in Brazil, the Maldives, and Zambia demonstrate that autocratization can be halted and reversed. This article introduces “U-Turn” as ...

“52% of all autocratization episodes become U-Turns, which increases to 73% when focusing on the last 30 years. The vast majority of U-Turns (90%) lead to restored or even improved levels of democracy”

V-Dem data

Censorship Is the Authoritarian’s Dream The right to free expression must include the right to say horrible and evil things.

"More professors in the United States have been fired for controversial views in the past week than any other week in all of American history." www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Opinion | The Billionaire Trump Supporter Who Will Soon Own the News

The Orbanization of America…

“Two independent journalistic voices, CBS News and CNN, could soon be combined into something potentially almost unrecognizable, something way too close to what is served up on a daily basis by the Murdochs.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/o...

📢 D3.1 - Methodology Working Paper: presenting a framework to identify & analyse domestic actors that support or amplify FIMI campaigns in Europe. The methodology includes typology, data collection, & network analysis.

Full deliverable available here: deconspirator.eu/deliverables/

📢 New #Deliverable publicly available! D8.2 – Dissemination & Communication Plan v2.0, led by White Research.

It reviews year-one dissemination & engagement activities, showing strong impact from social media, events & collaborations. Full deliverable available here: bit.ly/45ZAGB4

🚨 BREAKING: Russia has struck the EU delegation building in Kyiv.

Read the developing story: ow.ly/N2RW50WNllP

From one shameful chapter to another, it's disturbing how a site once used to unjustly imprison Japanese Americans is now being used to detain immigrants. Different era, same failure to uphold human rights. We should be learning from history, not repeating it. www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...

Geçen sene Ahmet Kurnaz ile Dışişleri Bakanlığı metinleri üzerinde bir LLM benchmarking çalışması olmadığını farkedip biz yapalım demiştik. Bu sene düzenlenen @ieeeras.bsky.social 'da sunduk ve sonuçları yayınlandı - ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/doc...

BJPolS abstract discussing the dynamics of mainstream and radical political rhetoric regarding anti-immigrant policies, highlighting differences in societal responses and enforcement norms based on the source of the rhetoric.

NEW -

How Mainstream Politicians Erode Norms - cup.org/4lfeHvD

"we find that statements by mainstream politicians lead to more norm erosion than similar statements by radical-right politicians"

- @valentimvicente.bsky.social, Elias Dinas & @dziblatt.bsky.social

#OpenAccess

OSoMeNet Visualize information spreading and sharing patterns across multiple social media platforms

🎉 After 8 amazing years, Hoaxy is retiring! Its legacy lives on in OSoMeNet—our new, unified tool for social media research. Thank you for supporting Hoaxy! 🙌

osome.iu.edu/tools/osomen...

In the context of #IC2S2 2025:

I would like to hear your thoughts on the future of Computational Social Science.

What do you see as the biggest opportunities and challenges ahead?

It’s a short, AI-led interview.
Interested? Start your interview here:

www.ainterviewer.dk/interview?id...

If you're @ic2s2.bsky.social #IC2S2 and are looking for a faculty position, get in touch. @uni-saarland.de is hiring.
Right now, there's an open call in Computer Science @saarland-informatics-campus.de: www.uni-saarland.de/fileadmin/up...
Soon, there'll be open calls in the Social Sciences.

Comparing the value of perceived human versus AI-generated empathy - Nature Human Behaviour AI mimics empathy well, but does its empathy feel different? The authors show human empathy has unique value: human-attributed responses are rated as more empathic than AI-attributed ones, especially ...

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Deciphering authenticity in the age of AI: how AI-generated disinformation images and AI detection tools influence judgements of authenticity - AI & SOCIETY An ongoing surge of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled false content has been spreading its way through the information ecosystem, including AI-generated images, which have been used as part of poli...

🚨 New publication alert 🚨

Aqsa Farooq and I explore how aesthetic realism and emotional salience influence authenticity judgements of AI-generated disinformation images.

#GenAI #disinformation #authenticity #commsky

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

What happens if you cross Trump? I combed through 53k of his tweets and found 30 Republican members of congress King Donald has feuded with

10 stood down
9 were primaried (3 won)
7 reconciled (4 resumed)
3 are unresolved
And John McCain died

www.economist.com/united-state...

Also real GDP per capita (PPP-adjusted) peaked around 2013–2015, then stagnated or declined, especially when measured in USD. Nominal GDP growth partly reflects inflation, not real productivity gains. Societal implications of rapid growth have been negative since 2015.

The White House @WhiteHouse If Daddy's home... Hey, hey, hey, Daddy. President Donald J. Trump attended the NATO Summit in The Hague, Netherlands. DADDY'S HOME 1:06 DADDY'S HOME: President Donald J. Trump Attends the NATO Summit, 2025

So weird. They’re all just so fucking weird.

YouTube video by Cambridge Disinformation Summit Disinformation is commonly used by "Mafia State" nation-state leaders to support corruption

Authoritarian governments are fundamentally transnational organized crime syndicates, or what @moisesnaim.bsky.social calls “Mafia States.”

youtu.be/iftBTs8FrA0?...

The Meta AI App Lets You ‘Discover’ People’s Bizarrely Personal Chats Launched in April, the Meta AI platform offers a “discover” feed that includes user queries containing medical, legal, and other seemingly sensitive information.

"Within the Meta AI app, a “discover” tab shows a timeline of other people’s interactions with the chatbot. ... While some of the highlighted queries and answers are innocuous ... others reveal locations, telephone numbers, and other sensitive information, all tied to user names and profile photos."

Since COVID, I recorded a ton of introductory lectures on data science, and data cleaning/visualization on Excel and R on Youtube. Finally managed to curate the most useful ones for beginners/newcomers and put them up on my website. Hope these will be of some benefit:
www.akinunver.org/teaching

Certainty and Strange Thoughts - The Ideas Letter Zarakol reflects on the collapse of the post–Cold War liberal international order and contrasts today's disorientation with the bold, definitive visions offered by thinkers like Fukuyama, Huntington, ...

Why do we have such difficulty making sense of our current moment? I brainstorm some possible answers

www.theideasletter.org/essay/certai...

Digital Democracy in a Divided Global Landscape A global shift is taking place. Leaders recognize that tech innovation equals power, and they are marshaling their resources accordingly. Countries are working to create technological advantages for t...

What obstacles stand against developing a unified Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) framework? What can countries do to overcome these obstacles and create a cohesive transatlantic strategy?

@akinunver.bsky.social unpacks for @carnegieendowment.org's #DigitalDemocracyNetwork👇