Influencers? Meanest thou the three Fates who weave, measure, and cut the whisper-thin yet iron-strong threades that bynde togethir all of spacetyme? - threades that spelle out, yn sorcerous glyphs unreadable to any save the three, everyething that ys, was, or will be? Aye, Ich knowe of influencers.

Feminist Science@feministscience.bsky.social · 4d ago

Big Tech has worked to relentlessly stigmatize being single. Dating Apps. Social Media. New stories. Old-fashioned billboards. AI Bots. Many computer campaigns used sexy shots of women and computers for marketing. #singleover30 feministscientist.substack.com/p/toxic-algo...

Another reminder that, amidst the myriad challenges facing academia, researchers also have to re-imagine the political economy of publishing. The biggest academic publishers (Wiley, Springer, Elsevier, etc) are also among the most restrictive and rapacious.

Shannon Mattern@shannonmattern.bsky.social · 3d ago

"In 2022, Wiley removed over 1,300 ebooks from academic library collections; [they said] perpetual access is not an option for subscribed content. In 2025, Clarivate,... announced they would stop offering libraries perpetual access licenses for ebooks and primary-source digital collections."

*whispers* you know we can do this cultural debate about art thing all the time, right? Websites and news organizations used to have culture critics on staff whose entire job was writing about books, movies, and TV. People read them and then discussed them. We have the technology to do this again.

Every few years, headlines announce that “heroin chic” is back. Over the past few months, I’ve been thinking less about fashion and more about the phrase 'take up less space’—and how women and marginalized folks are encouraged to shrink in #academia. thealmostprofessor.substack.com/p/taking-up-...

Taking Up Less Space

What the return of "heroin chic” shows us about who is expected to shrink.

thealmostprofessor.substack.com

New research suggests that LLMs can develop their own biases from experience, separate from their training data. This can lead them to stereotype job applicants even more than humans do. www.technologyreview.com/2026/07/20/1...

AI is more likely than humans to form biases when hiring

AI doesn’t just learn stereotypes from its training. It can cook up new ones, too.

technologyreview.com

It’s nice to see everyone’s textual analysis of The Odyssey It’s almost like the humanities give you entertainment, feelings, pleasure, and fun/interesting stuff to talk about, as well as lenses into both past and current society

📚 Another fantastic batch of articles is headed into production at Feminist Media Studies! One of my favorite parts of being Social Media Editor is getting these sneak peeks at the scholarship that's on its way. Here's a thread of what's coming. 🧵

Wow. Final judgement in the Anthropic class action is approved. Anthropic will pay $1.5 billion to authors whose works it pirated. The lawyers get $101.56 million (6.8%); a third of what they initially requested. There is a 30-day notice-of-appeal period. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Yet another reminder: We can do things differently. people.com/nyc-parents-...

N.Y.C. Parks Department to Offer Free Childcare for 500 Kids Across the City with New ‘Parents’ Night Out’ Program

N.Y.C. Parks Department’s ‘Parents’ Night Out’ offers 500 parents and caregivers a free evening on Aug. 16, with supervised activities and dinner for kids.

people.com

New on Substack: I've been thinking about the Ontario #wildfires, climate change, and what these disasters reveal about inequality and public policy in Ontario. Here's my latest essay. I'd be interested to hear what others think. #onpoli #climatechange open.substack.com/pub/thealmos...

The Policy Failure Behind Ontario’s Wildfires

On Climate Change, Bad Budgets, and Who Gets Left Behind

open.substack.com

So a reasonable question here would be... why are students using AI to do their coursework (especially when it's against the rules for a class!) if they also think that it's bad for them? Because they assume that everyone else is using it, and if they don't, they will be at a disadvantage.

This data is absolutely wild. The mean midterm score was 96, and the mean final score was 48. The *mode* midterm score was 100. The professor says that he intentionally made the midterm harder, and also that in 20 years this class final had never had a final exam average lower than 65.

Been thinking a lot about the students in this class (presumably, but not certainly) using AI on a take-home midterm and then bombing the in-class final. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty... But I think the real story here is not *that* students use AI, it's (part of) *why* students use AI. 🧵

Brown Professor Suspects Most of His Class Used AI to Cheat

Brown University leaders’ response to the alleged cheating incident has been “meek,” the professor said.

insidehighered.com

The fact that J.K. Rowling successfully bullied Amnesty International into taking down a report that accurately called out her attack on trans people, especially trans women, is so repulsive and such a display of the power of her money, and her choice to put her vast fortune behind persecution.

Amnesty removes report that called JK Rowling's centre 'anti-rights'

Amnesty International UK has removed a report which labelled JK Rowling's sexual abuse crisis centre Beira's Place as "anti-rights".

thepinknews.com

Speaking of @dlcplus.org ... we're crowdsourcing keywords for our upcoming mini-conferences! What keywords should we add next? 👀

DLC keyword suggestions - Mentimeter

Create, interact, and analyze — engage audiences and spark real conversations in meetings and classes.

mentimeter.com

If you're at ELO, come to our panel tomorrow organized by @kieraobbard.bsky.social for @dlcplus.org: "On the Peripheries of E-lit: Studying Digital Literary Cultures (Plus)"! Ft. us, @supercamilla.bsky.social. @magdalenakorecka.bsky.social + adv. board members @antimony27.bsky.social + Tess McNulty

"The past decade has been hard on Ontario universities." You can say that again. How much longer can public infrastructure receive too little attention from our elected officials until they reach a crisis point? buff.ly/jk1R2eM #PublicPolicy #OnPoli

Ontario: The new pragmatism - University Affairs

After a decade marked by funding cutbacks and a tuition freeze, the province’s universities face the future with an eye for opportunities.

buff.ly

Ontario's universities are often discussed as businesses or cost centres, but they also function as research hubs, regional anchors, cultural institutions, and workforce developers. Like digital infrastructure, their value extends beyond immediate economic returns. buff.ly/KZhbyMj #HigherEd #OnPoli

AI policy discussions often focus on innovation and growth. Less attention is paid to the infrastructure required to support those ambitions. Data centres, energy demand, water use, and local impacts are increasingly important policy considerations. buff.ly/Th4phhK #AIInfrastructure

"Social media platforms are known to be driven by recommendation algorithms that may send us down “rabbit holes” of the same type of (increasingly extreme) content. This can lead to a distorted view of the world and our place in it...

Ontario universities spent the last decade adapting to fiscal constraint, tuition freezes, and changing enrolment patterns. These adaptations don't just represent resilience—they show a system stretched beyond its intended capacity due to budget cuts. buff.ly/jk1R2eM #HigherEducationPolicy #OnPoli

Ontario: The new pragmatism - University Affairs

After a decade marked by funding cutbacks and a tuition freeze, the province’s universities face the future with an eye for opportunities.

buff.ly

Research consistently suggests that the relationship between social media use and well-being is more complex than popular narratives imply. Good policy depends on understanding nuance rather than assuming simple cause-and-effect relationships. buff.ly/6W2Abq5 #EvidenceBasedPolicy #SocialMediaPolicy

Is social media making you unhappy? The answer is not so simple

Contrary to what you may have heard, your mindset may be the biggest thing affecting how social media connects to your wellbeing.

buff.ly

"It's probably the most horrendous intervention into university autonomy in the history of the province." How should policymakers balance democratic accountability for publicly funded institutions with the principle of institutional autonomy? buff.ly/XiM0PH3 #UniversityGovernance #HigherEd

Ontario's Bill 33 has generated debate about where authority should reside within the post-secondary system. Supporters emphasize accountability; critics emphasize institutional autonomy. buff.ly/XiM0PH3 #HigherEducation #Governance

Critics mull challenge to Ontario’s Bill 33 - University Affairs

Government regulation of student fees, admissions criteria, cause controversy around new provincial education law.

buff.ly

A recent court ruling on AI-generated search summaries raises important accountability questions. When AI systems generate mis- or dis-information, where should responsibility lie? For me, it's with the platform. buff.ly/k34MzSn #AIGovernance #PolicyResearch

A Court Has Ruled That Google Is Liable for False Statements Generated by AI Overviews

The ruling holds that a company that designs, trains, operates, and manages an AI system must assume legal liability for any damages caused by the responses it generates.

wired.com

We are excited to share the program for our fully online @eliterature.bsky.social ELO 2026 Conference, coming up this July! Check it out and consider registering to join us if you haven't - it is free for all ELO members! stars.library.ucf.edu/elo2026/comb...

"The goal of the online harms legislative framework is to make online platforms safer for everyone in Canada, especially children." What should success look like for online safety legislation? Reduced exposure to harmful content? Better platform accountability?

Ontario's #HigherEd funding debate often focuses on deficits and enrolment. But the larger #publicpolicy question is if the province's funding model aligns with what it expects universities to deliver. Public institutions can't be asked to do more with less indefinitely. thelocal.to/ontario-post...

"'All of these terms, 'hot girls read' included, were pieces of a collective language built by thousands of readers interacting in the bookish spaces.'" lithub.com/a-content-cr...

A content creator tried to trademark “Hot Girls Read.” BookTok clapped back.

In a bit of unhinged book news, an influencer has come under fire this week after attempting to trademark the slogan “Hot Girls Read.” Allie Mitrovich, the content creator behind Allie …

lithub.com