The book, "The Player and the Played: From Gamed Capitalism to Twenty-First Century Fascism," is now available for free from MIT Press. direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...
Niels van Doorn
@nielsvdoorn.bsky.social
Associate Professor: University of Amsterdam. Editor: Platforms & Society. Book-in-the-making: The Platform Fix (MIT Press, forthcoming)
New Pub Alert! Our member @julieychen.bsky.social published "Patchworking platforms: on socio-technological infrastructures for AI data labor supply" earlier this year in @jcultecon.bsky.social. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Patchworking platforms: on socio-technological infrastructures for AI data labor supply
Focusing on China’s AI data production industry, this article examines the formation of a multi-layered structure of data labor supply, demonstrating how workers with different labor relations and ...
tandfonline.com
Join the Leiden Political Economy Group for our annual lecture in GPE this Friday @unileiden.bsky.social. This year we're delighted to welcome @nielsvdoorn.bsky.social speaking about platform capitalism. www.staff.universiteitleiden.nl/events/2026/...
Some theses on #slop. A thread. Slop is automated ideology. It's content made of content, optimized for circulation, prompted, shaped, and refined through feedback loops of adaptation to platform conditions 1/
Paper out! The first paper of my PhD, on the reasons why media organisations have adopted cloud infrastructures, is finally out on Open Access journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
“Reliable and Cheap”?: Examining the adoption of the cloud by European news media companies - Agustin Ferrari Braun, 2026
Since the middle of the 2010s, an overwhelming majority of European news media companies have adopted cloud infrastructures. While a growing number of scholars ...
journals.sagepub.com
BTW the people who spent the last few years advocating for Palestine were clearly 100% right that normalizing war crimes and genocide there would just increase the likelihood of inhumane actions elsewhere. Just saying.
This is by far the best discussion on the war on Iran I’ve heard or read. All participants are so informative, so eloquent, the scope of the conversation so wide-ranging. Absolutely essential listening.
Daniel Denvir@danieldenvir.bsky.social · 6mo agoA monstrously comprehensive nearly three hour long episode of @thedigradio.bsky.social examining the economic warfare dimensions of the US-Israeli war on Iran and Iran’s asymmetric response with Aslı Bâli, @yarbatman.bsky.social, and Nicholas Mulder. www.thedigradio.com/podcast/econ...
What does Israeli-American liberation look like in Iran? It looks like a girl's elementary school in Hormozgan getting bombed and killing over 50 little girls.
Venture capital doesn’t just fund tech. In a new article, @loicriom.bsky.social and I explore venture capitalization: how ideas and technologies are made investable, and how this process fuels tech oligarchy—not just as economic power, but as a force that reshapes culture, values, and truth.
Oooh shit! Congrats @ceciliarikap.bsky.social, this looks awesome!
HUGE BREAKING NEWS: SCOTUS rules against Trump on tariffs
@platformsnsociety.bsky.social Congrats @bloggeronpole.bsky.social!
Dr Carolina Are / Blogger On Pole@bloggeronpole.bsky.social · 8mo ago1st paper of 2026 & in my new job, out open access in Platforms & Society! With a survey amongst 100 creators of pole dance content, I found Instagram’s attempt at transparency & accountability via Account Status shadowbanning appeals was entirely performative: journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10....
Nairobi has become a test-site for China’s techno-capital. Our book of the week maps how the city's new digital ecosystem challenges both the West-centric script of technological “catch-up” and alarmist tales of neocolonialism. By @andretwp.bsky.social on @ucpress.bsky.social buff.ly/Jo6qN6X
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Daniel Denvir@danieldenvir.bsky.social · 8mo agoThe Dig you’ve been waiting for to understand the political economy of AI as it becomes fulcrum of global contests and conflicts over economic and military dominance. My interview w/ @nsrnicek.bsky.social on his book Silicon Empires: The Fight for the Future of AI www.thedigradio.com/podcast/sili...
Excellent new paper from @js-tan.bsky.social and Kathleen Thelen, on the political economy of the cloud company business model and how it feeds the AI race and techno-nationalism journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
journals.sagepub.com
An open letter on the proscription of Palestine Action – defend the right to protest against war and genocide! protestisnotterrorism.uk/2026/01/12/g...
Global scholars declare support for Palestine prisoners and solidarity with Greta Thunberg
Dozens of distinguished scholars and authors from around the world have made a declaration in solidarity with prisoners in the UK whose long detention on remand on charges relating to activism for …
protestisnotterrorism.uk
Statement on the Israeli army’s invasion of Birzeit University We call on universities and international institutions worldwide to condemn this onslaught against the production and dissemination of knowledge in Palestine. criticaltheoryconsortium.org/announcement...
ICCTP Statement on the Military Invasion of Birzeit University on January 6, 2026 - International Consortium of Critical Theory
The Board of the International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs condemns the Israeli army’s invasion of Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank. We consider this act of violence as a contin...
criticaltheoryconsortium.org
Just picked up @nsrnicek.bsky.social’s new book. Congrats Nick, it looks great and I’m excited to dig in!
The #AoIR2026 Call for Papers is officially up on the www: aoir.org/aoir2026/ This year marks AoIRs' first time in Mexico and it will be the second bilingual AoIR. Please share with your networks. 🌮
AoIR 2026 |
aoir.org
🌟New book! SAGE Handbook of Digital Labour, edited by Ergin Bulut, Julie Chen, Rafael Grohmann, and Kylie Jarrett. us.sagepub.com/en-us/sam/th...
Trying to think through the regime's actions in Venezuela.— www.unpopularfront.news/p/crude-ideo...
Crude Ideology
Some Thoughts on Venezuela
unpopularfront.news
One of the best pieces I read in 2025.
Protean Magazine@proteanmag.com · 9mo agoIn a follow-up to his and Brenna Bhandar’s “Slumlord Empire” from February, Alberto Toscano further analyzed the Trump administration’s Gaza ceasefire plan and its genocidal logic of displacement and accumulation. proteanmag.com/2025/10/13/p...
❗ We are urgently looking for a new Lecturer in Cultural Data & AI at the University of Amsterdam: werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies... The deadline for applying is very soon: Jan 4th. You’ll work with @tpoell.bsky.social, @riederb.bsky.social, @dluitse.bsky.social, @louravn.bsky.social, me, & more
Vacancy — Lecturer in Cultural Data & AI (D4)
<p>Would you like to teach cutting-edge theories, computational methods, and questions in Critical Data & AI? Then we have the perfect challenge for you!</p>
werkenbij.uva.nl
me to grad students: share your work with each other, talk, exchange ideas! me to me: no one can ever see this draft it's garbage and they'll think i'm garbage and then i'll have to move into a dumpster where i belong
It’s that time of year: what was the piece of writing about AI that stuck with you the most this year, pop press or academic? A few of mine in the thread. ⬇️
The special issue on Authortarianism in the Digital Age is now live (eds. @kylzjarrett.bsky.social @robkitchin.bsky.social @steelecat717.bsky.social and Jing Hiah). It is comprised of 48 commentaries from around the world exploring how the digital is implicated in creeping authoritarianism.
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
journals.sagepub.com
New post from me, trying to understand the various deals being made to build out AI infrastructure. Plus some news and research I thought was interesting recently. siliconempires.substack.com/p/financing-...
Financing AI Compute
Financing AI Compute
siliconempires.substack.com