David Hobson
@dhobso.bsky.social
Research Engineer @mediatechdemocracy.bsky.social | Computational Social Science, NLP, Computational Narrative Understanding He/him https://davidghobson1.github.io/
In 2025–26, we witnessed a growing tech governance gap: visible during the 45th federal election, in AI systems absorbing Canadian journalism without paying, and in an influence network spreading Alberta secession to a mass audience before platforms or regulators noticed. 🧵
Great interview with my colleague @mathieulavigne.bsky.social on content farms using AI to target Canadians www.ctvnews.ca/video/2026/0...
‘News slop’ accounts targeting Canadians on Facebook with misinformation | Deception Decoded
Mathieu Lavigne, the analytical lead at the Media Ecosystem Observatory, says the accounts use AI to write thousands of fake stories about trending topics.
ctvnews.ca
Ever been interested in coordinated activity on Facebook? My team and I tracked 340 foreign-run accounts that are using AI to create fake news content targeting users in Canada, the US, the UK, and Europe. Here's a little exploration of the data using Toponymy and DataMapPlot
Our new incident response report exposes a coordinated network of 340 Facebook pages, largely operated from Vietnam, flooding feeds across Canada, the US, the UK, and Europe with AI-fabricated news, and inadvertently funded by Canadian public and private advertisers. 🧵
With a potential Alberta referendum ahead, we're releasing "Slopaganda," an incident response report documenting a network of inauthentic YouTube channels pushing coordinated, fake Albertan political commentary. 🧵#cdnpoli
Are you a Canadian aged 17 –23? Your voice matters in shaping AI & age assurance policy. Following our fourth #GenZAI Forum in Halifax, you can now share your perspective through Make.org's civic dialogue platform here: tinyurl.com/yyzny4mn
React and contribute to collective reflection: AI and Age Assurance
A journey to discover to share your point of view.
tinyurl.com
Last night in NYC, @jonathanhaidt.bsky.social joined Ava Smithing for a live recording of Left To Their Own Devices, followed by a community showcase of organizations from across the US and Canada that Haidt called "the Woodstock of tech reform." 🧵
Posts featuring terms like 'maxxing' and 'mogging' have increased substantially in 2026, suggesting growing adoption of language associated with harmful behaviour. But these terms aren't new — they originated in incel/manosphere online subcultures in the mid-2000s.
Are you a Gen Z Canadian (17–23)? We want to hear your thoughts on AI & data privacy! We just hosted our third #GenZAI forum, where 100 young Canadians drafted policy recommendations on AI data collection. Thanks to Make.Org, you can join the conversation here: tinyurl.com/yv6jz3rt
React and contribute to collective reflection: AI and Privacy
A journey to discover to share your point of view.
tinyurl.com
Our newest brief, “Conspiratorial Claims and Institutional Distrust in Canada’s Online Ecosystem,” examines how anti-institutional conspiracy theories circulate online and how widely they resonate with Canadians.🧵 #cdnpoli
🚨 MEO is moving 🚨 Follow @mediatechdemocracy.bsky.social for updates on our information ecosystem research! 🧵
Let me tell you who my BEST texting buddy has been lately. My 11-year-old niece, Morgan. Complete sentences ✅ Always asks how I am doing! ✅ Has interesting content to share✅ Knows when the chat as naturally concluded✅ Better than most adults and for sure all men.
Very happy to announce that our paper 'Just Another Hour on TikTok: ID sampling to obtain a complete slice of TikTok' was just published in the Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media! Check it out here: journalqd.org/article/view...
Just Another Hour on TikTok: ID sampling to obtain a complete slice of TikTok | Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media
journalqd.org
"A risk is that, if Trump sticks to his course, he will push the world back to the way it was in the age of empires a century or more ago - a world where big powers, with spheres of influence, sought to impose their will, and where mighty authoritarian nationalists led their peoples to disaster."
Bowen: Trump risks pushing world back to age of empires
Donald Trump wants and needs quick victories. Taking Maduro is the decisive win he has craved, writes Jeremy Bowen.
bbc.com
Two weeks ago I spent the whole day at the Museum of the Moving Image to listen to New Yorkers. This is what Liam shared with me.
This summer, David Suzuki received attention for his iPolitics interview titled: “‘It’s too late’: David Suzuki says the fight against climate change is lost.” This shift in tone led us to ask: Are Canadians Climate Doomers? @chrispyross.bsky.social 🧵
The #CharlieKirk shooting has sparked widespread debate about political violence. So, we surveyed Canadians to evaluate their perceptions of the event and political violence, comparing our results to U.S. data when available. Here's what we found 🧵 #cdnpoli #uspoli
Après une année marquée par l'ascension de l'IA générative et l'impact croissant des influenceurs sur les chambres d’écho, nos chercheurs sonnent l'alerte : sans règles claires ni transparence des plateformes, la manipulation pourrait bientôt dépasser notre capacité de détection. 🧵
Studying how public figures are portrayed in the news is hard: pre-defined taxonomies are limiting, and character summaries don’t scale well. Our new paper introduces a taxonomy-free labeling approach using LLMs that can reveal nuanced character portrayals: aclanthology.org/2025.emnlp-m...
Evaluating Taxonomy Free Character Role Labeling (TF-CRL) in News Stories using Large Language Models
David G Hobson, Derek Ruths, Andrew Piper. Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing. 2025.
aclanthology.org
🚨Our 2025 Federal Election report is here and it should serve as a warning for Canada to act now to protect future elections. Canada’s 2025 federal election upheld its integrity, but exposed a digital ecosystem under mounting strain. Read on to learn about our key findings 🧵
“Generally, fascists and extremists are trying to undermine institutions of truth, facts and education because that is what’s standing in their way – an informed citizenry” - Sander van der Linden
If it doesn't fit your narrative or version of reality, get rid of it. bbc.com/news/article...
Pentagon fires intelligence chief after Iran attack assessment
The firing comes just weeks after a White House rebuke of a leaked intelligence report assessing the impact of US strikes on Iran.
bbc.com
“All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room” (Blaise Pascal: Pensées)
“Gilgamesh, why are you roaming? Until the end comes, enjoy your life, spend it in happiness, not despair. Savor your food, make each day a delight, bathe and anoint yourself, wear bright clothes that are sparkling clean, let music and dancing fill your house… That is the best way for a man to live”
