Robbie Owen

Robbie Owen

@squidgygoat.bsky.social

Writing person & Greta Gerwig completist. If people in the street ask me "Are you Squidge Rugby?" I answer yes.

1,145 Followers 118 Following 137 Posts Joined Oct 2024
1 week ago

If you took $1 billion and gave it to the endowment of a different small college each day, they could each provide a free college education to several hundred students per year in perpetuity. Instead we are using that money to bomb schools and kill students in Iran, for no clearly stated purpose.

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3 weeks ago
The political effects of X's feed algorithm
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10098-2
Received: 16 December 2024
Accepted: 4 January 2026
Published online: 18 February 2026
Open access
• Check for updates
Germain Gauthier,5, Roland Hodler?5, Philine Widmer35 & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya3,4,5 m
Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects'. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk's platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects.
Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users' feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X's algorithm has persistent effects on users' current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.

A new paper shows that less than 2 months of exposure to Twitter’s algorithmic feed significantly shifts people’s political views to the right.

Moving from chronological feed to the algorithmic feed also increases engagement.

This is one of the most concerning papers I’ve read in awhile.

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1 month ago

They have a big sign up on the door of the screen I just walked into at the cinema saying confetti canons are banned.

I'm seeing Hamnet.

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1 month ago
Preview
‘Ella McCay’ Met With RAVES in France: “Masterpiece!” — World of Reel French critics have completely been taken by “Ella McCay,” which is getting near-unanimous raves over there.

Ella McCay is good and only me & the French understand this.
www.worldofreel.com/blog/2026/2/...

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1 month ago
A screenshot of Animal Crossing New Horizons showing Francine saying, "Abolish ICE! Yes! That sounds wonderful!"
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2 months ago
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Not again

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2 months ago

Rugby Challenge 2006 is number one because it's the only game where you can tackle your own players

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2 months ago

I've actually played it a few times in the last week and it is now an actual functional video game with almost as much content as it launched with.

It's better than the official 2015 World Cup game and Rugby 15 so that makes it like the eighth best rugby game ever or something

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2 months ago

I really liked the luxury of Frankenstein on that front. You could feel the 30 years GDT has been trying to make it throughout the film itself. The stuff he pinpoints and/or adds to the book adds proper depth.

Loved BOWI! It's so lovely. Had a cry had many laughs, what more can you want?!

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2 months ago

Same here. It's incredible. There's so much in that movie, it's just bursting with ideas and reflections and as you say, things I've never seen in a film before. I thought it was astonishing. I'm so crazily invested in Spike as a character, I'd watch thirty films about him growing up in this world.

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2 months ago

I honestly have no idea.

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2 months ago

It's a coming of age movie about Brexit. The only way it could be more up my street was if it didn't have zombies in it.

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2 months ago
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(And some more)

(I could go on all day)

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2 months ago
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Some films I really liked but didn't hear many people talking about-

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2 months ago

I was going to do an additional shorter list of the funniest films of 2025 but one movie is so far and away ahead of the others it felt pointless

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2 months ago
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It's that time of year again! I saw 194 movies released in 2025, and these are my twenty favourites-

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2 months ago

Snog Antoine Marry Movies

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2 months ago

Year Twelve.

Movies are great.

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2 months ago

My main accomplishment in 2025 was that I got very tired.

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2 months ago

That's a brilliant idea I may have to steal

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2 months ago

They should make up a holiday just so people watch Singin in the Rain like how they made up Christmas just so people watch It's a Wonderful Life

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3 months ago

Professional sports is the only profession where if you get good enough at your job, you will become a playable character in a video game.

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3 months ago

What if the movie was called Glad Boys and Will Smith and Martin Lawrence played men who were very grateful. That’s what I’m thinking abou.

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4 months ago

Amen

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4 months ago

Good time to add Google Docs constantly suggesting ways to make your writing more boring like it's pointing out spelling mistakes has been driving me to the brink.

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5 months ago

I don't want to be a dickhead about this, but I'm not sure I want to associate one of my heroes passing away with a paedophile being murdered.

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5 months ago

Absolutely. And one of the most effortlessly funny people to ever live too. She impacted and contributed to the world we live in today in so many endless ways, some subtle and some very very loud.

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5 months ago

I don’t think I can understand a world without Diane Keaton in it.

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5 months ago

Genuinely think this is one of my favourite video essays, and I don't just say that because I love rugby/I'm friendly with @squidgygoat.bsky.social.

The way it details both the sports drama and political tension does such a good job at illustrating how almost every activity is inherently political.

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6 months ago

He's gonna make some insane tweets about this, I can't wait

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