Dr Alexei Abrahams

New article out now with @smokegatherer.bsky.social and Nasir Almasri on the Palestinian movement and demobilization. We look at the protests of 2021, the unity intifada, and their aftermath on the structure of the movement. Hopefully the 1st of a few articles on this topic

doi.org/10.3167/cont...

In a short span of time there has been a global rise in "fake news" laws - legislation that purports to or is designed to curb the spread of false information. @sbradshaw.bsky.social, Monzima Haque, and I wanted to understand why.

"The Global Spread of Misinformation Laws" ijoc.org/index.php/ij...

Already citing this! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Folks at #ica25 might wanna check out @ijoc-usc.bsky.social’s Special Section on True Costs of Misinformation, guest edited by me and @bostonjoan.bsky.social. The collection critiques mainstream frameworks of disinfo studies, written during a more hopeful "peak moment": ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc

📄NEW PAPER + 📈DATASET + 🌐WEBSITE

Please to be able to share our dataset paper: "An enriched, multimodal social media dataset of a UK General Election campaign."

The paper builds off the crowd-sourced publication of candidate lists in advance of the last UK General Election...

Increasingly sophisticated deepfake AI-generated political ads threaten to unravel Canada’s social order Increasingly sophisticated deepfake AI-generated internet political ads threaten to unravel Canada’s social order, experts warn, pointing to the successful war on truth U.S. President Donald Trump is…

AI-powered disinformation is flooding the 2025 election, with deepfakes and fake news posing real threats to democracy. Jennie Phillips says the spread is like a virus, and Canadians must fight it before it takes hold: www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews...

The story of ‘Canadians for the 51st state and Elon Musk for Governor’: How a thriving buy-and-sell forum turned into Facebook’s largest voice for annexation The Facebook group now called “Canadians for the 51st state and Elon Musk for Governor” used to be Hamilton’s thriving buy-and-sell community — until it was “hijacked.”

A buy/sell Facebook group mysteriously became a pro-Elon Musk, 51st state forum, without users opting in. @smokegatherer.bsky.social says it's likely hacked or sold. @mika-jpd.bsky.social points to an underground market where groups go for $50-$250. Meta’s fine with it.

Nice to see that all our speakers during this election interference and online disinformation themed month are on bluesky!

Alexei Abrahams - @smokegatherer.bsky.social
Philip Mai - @philipmai.com
Sze-Fung Lee - @imleeszefung.bsky.social
Giancarlo Fiorella - @giancarlofiorella.bsky.social

Researchers Visit the post for more.

For researchers / #polisky folks: if you’re dealing with online harassment because of your research, here is a useful set of resources (potentially relevant to others too):

Alexei Abrahams Gray Hat Social Media Surveilling Online Political Discourse in the Public Interest Civic Tech TORONTO Hacknight #487 IN PERSON AND ONLINE Tues April 1 → 7pm

Next Tues, @smokegatherer.bsky.social talks to us about Gray Hat Social Media – the tools and techniques being developed by researchers to restore public oversight of the social media space

1 April 7pm, in person/online

Plus our usual breakout projects and discussions!

guild.host/events/civic...

📢 مجتمع التحقق العربي في مؤتمر #RightsCon2025!

يسرنا الإعلان عن مشاركتنا في مؤتمر @rightscon.org في جلسة افتراضية.

@abdelrahman.bsky.social @monashtaya.bsky.social @alsayyad.bsky.social @michatobia.bsky.social @smokegatherer.bsky.social @timep.bsky.social

📢 Arabi Facts Hub at #RightsCon2025!

We’re excited to invite you to our online session at Rightscon 2025!

@abdelrahman.bsky.social @monashtaya.bsky.social @alsayyad.bsky.social @michatobia.bsky.social @smokegatherer.bsky.social @timep.bsky.social

"a lot of automation relies on leveraging convenience. AI summaries do very little to help us learn how to listen... The short-cut on the switchback, the summary of the meeting so you don’t have to go, and in the process, you don’t have to engage with the mess that is a bigger set of relations."

Strong 💪🏼

This episode is now unlocked on all platforms. I learned a hell of a lot from these brilliant folks. And their courage inspired me to stop self-censoring about what I think is going wrong on the left.

Highly recommend supporting The Fire These Times and the whole From the Periphery network.

Our Mirror Worlds w/ Naomi Klein For episode 182, Elia, Anna, and Dana are joined by author, scholar, and activist Naomi Klein to discuss her most recent book, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, and the myriad connections…

Interviewed @naomiaklein.bsky.social about, well, a lot

thefirethesetimes.com/2025/01/10/o...

❤️❤️Thanks Joan, this is one of the projects that incubated in your lab way back at Harvard. Couldn't have come together without your support and vision.

Social Media Observatory Learn to build a web app that can monitor millions of posts across all social media platforms to chart public opinion in real time

Wicked proud of Alexei!

He’s been working so hard to create this code and write this book: nostarch.com/social-media...

Get early access today!

@smokegatherer.bsky.social

How the news cycle misses the predominant violence in Israel-Palestine The uneventful nature of structural violence renders it unfit for media coverage compared to kinetic violence. But the two are inextricably linked.

Read every word of this eloquent and thoughtful intervention by @smokegatherer.bsky.social on structural versus kinetic violence in occupied Palestine: www.972mag.com/structural-v...

The Revolutionary Stranger: How Frantz Fanon Put Theory Into Practice In November 1960, a traveler of ambiguous origin, brown-skinned but not African, arrived in Mali. Issued in Tunis two years earlier, his passport identified him as a doctor born in 1925 in Tunisia,…

A moving excerpt from Adam Shatz’s new biography of Frantz Fanon (h/t @smokegatherer.bsky.social):

That's a very negative approach. Tell me something positive about the candidate you'd like me to vote for instead

I don't really see the distinction... figuring out his appeal seems an important step towards putting forward a better alternative. That's the democratic process, right? 🤔

And now that I've read the article, it honestly seems like a helpful investigation into Trump’s appeal with his base. What am I missing?

Haven't read the article but the highlighted text sounds reasonable?

148/ Understanding Seen and Unseen Violence in Israel-Palestine w/ Diana Greenwald & Alexei Abrahams Listen to this episode from The Fire These Times on Spotify. For episode 148, Dana El Kurd and Joey Ayoub are joined by Diana Greenwald and Alexei Abrahams to talk about seen and unseen violence in Is...

Great podcast on how to think about violence in Palestinian context, with Dana El Kurd, Diana Greenwald and Alexei Abrahams

open.spotify.com/episode/05Nd...

Basically English-language Western media... Just not Australia/NZ

US, UK, Canada, news outlets with national / Intl scope

😢Structural violence isn't newsworthy in the same way, even though it's the primary type of violence inflicted by the state. In response to it, Palestinians are often the initiators of kinetic violence... which is where Intl audiences tune in 🤷🏽‍♂️

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4... what an eloquent and insightful essay. It was a relief to read after the past few weeks 👏🏽

Formidable, Marc. 👏🏽