martin johannes riedl
@martinriedl.bsky.social
asst prof, school of journalism and media @ university of tennessee | topics: political influencers, platform governance, content moderation, chat and messaging apps, journalism | he/him | 🇪🇺 alien | www.martinriedl.com | opinions: own
gotta love an academic paper (in a top journal) that builds up a fake straw man and then takes it down in an unsophisticated way, positioning itself as the inevitable solution to all definitional problems 😄
🚨 I'm thrilled to share a new 🔓 #OpenAccess article out now in Information, Communication & Society: Inaccuracies, omissions, and bullshit: 2024 U.S. elections through the eyes of ChatGPT A quick 🧵:
A tiny snippet of user-generated text as short as 13 words long is often enough to manipulate the AI agents that power tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI search, new research shows. www.404media.co/it-is-trivia...
It Is Trivially Easy to Use Reddit to Manipulate AI Search, Research Suggests
"We show that a tiny snippet—just 13 words—of retrieved text on a UGC website like Reddit, Wikipedia, Quora, or Facebook can change AI agents to output spam / scam content pretty consistently."
404media.co
"Even if Anthropic persuades the government to lift the control, the deeper question will remain: whether there should be, and if so under what circumstances, a licensing regime for frontier AI," writes @alanrozenshtein.com.
A Kill Switch for Frontier AI
The government is using export control law to force Anthropic to cut access to its most powerful models. The legal authority is plausible but the facts remain murky.
lawfaremedia.org
Hey #ica26, I recently wrote a little something that I believe might be interesting to many. Over years I tried to find a way to properly keep up to date with new journal publications across those journals that are most important to me... (1/n)
Among the many lost opportunities I observed — repeatedly — across decades in the academy: how infrequently universities recognize or tap into resident experts and local knowledge. Faculty expertise is valued mostly as a funding magnet or PR opportunity; it's rarely seen as locally applicable.
Ilana Horn@ilanahorn.bsky.social · 2mo agowhat is wild to me is how few universities with schools of education are turning to us for our expertise in pedagogy. most seem to just be hopping on the AI train and largely ignoring the downstream consequences for our teaching
I recently spoke with Kate Talerico from @sfchronicle.com about the Californian paid political influencer disclosure controversies of the current moment. Link below ⬇️ www.sfchronicle.com/politics/art...
‘Yes, this is an ad’: Steyer’s paid influencer blitz is roiling California’s governor race
The fight over paid influencers illustrates how important online content creators have become in political campaigns.
sfchronicle.com
wow — the preprint host, arxiv, is banning authors for a year if they submit papers with hallucinated citations 🤖
Helen Branswell 🇨🇦@helenbranswell.bsky.social · 3mo agoI find this unsettling: A new study in #Lancet shows that the number of faux citations in scientific articles is on the rise, and #AI is likely to blame. @aniloza.bsky.social reports. www.statnews.com/2026/05/07/l...
Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Michigan want to build a $1.2 billion, 220,000-sq.-ft. nuclear weapons research and AI data center in Ypsilanti Township, MI, that would use 200,000 gallons of water a day. The local utility authority wants to assess environmental impacts first.
404 Media@404media.co · 3mo agoThe University of Michigan has sent a legal threat over a yearlong pause that would prevent water hookup to a proposed nuclear weapons research and AI data center. www.404media.co/university-c...
Another among the many, many reasons why we should push back against big tech’s stranglehold on our pedagogical toolkit:
Ian Bogost@ibogost.com · 3mo agoCanvas, the courseware service, is down everywhere due to a ransomware attack. My students are supposed to submit their final projects on Canvas by midnight. I can't even email them to let them know what's going on because course management of that nature is handled through… Canvas.
Note to self: Add this piece on "Frankencitations" to reading list for fall grad class
John Warner@biblioracle.bsky.social · 3mo agoI talk to @benpatrickwill.bsky.social about how the citations of his academic work have skyrocketed. Unfortunately it's because of "Frankencitations," AI-hallucinated references that proliferates like Gremlins getting hit with water after midnight. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...
congrats to the team! looks like a fab SI
Jo(sephine) Lukito@jolukito.bsky.social · 3mo ago🚨We are so incredibly thrilled to announce that our Multi-Platform Research Special Issue in Political Communication is out now at www.tandfonline.com/toc/upcp20/4...! Special Issue Team: @meredithpruden.bsky.social @yunkangyang.bsky.social @jiyoun-suk.bsky.social Wei Zhong and me!!! 🎉
New: What do RuPaul's Drag Race, Clavicular, and a GOP congressional candidate have in common? Anonymous social accounts are paid to semi-covertly promote them through clips. Social content is rapidly getting shorter and shorter — we're calling it The Clippening. 🎁 www.theverge.com/report/92000...
Your feed is overrun with clips — this is the cutthroat community of “clippers” behind it
In the age of clips, what’s the value of the full-length work?
theverge.com
Lots to appreciate about this piece. Among them, a careful answer to the question of what in God’s name university administrators are thinking in the headlong, apparently suicidal rush to embrace AI. +
Dan Greene @dmgreene.bsky.social · 3mo agoI was lucky to write the lead article for a special issue of Academe on AI in the Corporate University. In "What does AI do?" I offer a provisional balance sheet of this technology's effects on our work, our finances, and our management, in a moment of rising fascist attacks on higher education.
AccessNow has opened up about how pressure from Beijing led to the cancellation of the world's largest digital human rights conference
China Pressure Canceled World’s Largest Digital Human Rights Conference
RightCon's organizers said Beijing was upset over over the inclusion of speakers from Taiwain.
404media.co
was not aware of the particular ny state law - but more power to legislators and activists who are fighting the encroachment of dynamic pricing in all aspects of society
Ronan Farrow@ronanfarrow.bsky.social · 6mo ago(1/11) If you live in NY, you’ve probably started seeing a new warning: “THIS PRICE WAS SET BY AN ALGORITHM USING YOUR PERSONAL DATA.” This mandatory disclosure went into effect late last year, and it’s the first attempt by a US state to grapple with a new generation of surveillance pricing.
Another part to add to this equation: UCLA (and I assume other u’s) is heavily encouraging faculty to build very specifically defined “online courses,” delivered via Canvas, consisting almost entirely of videos and quizzes that can be administered by TAs, without faculty involvement.
Matt Seybold@mattseybold.bsky.social · 3mo agoInterested in SCOTUS assessing constitutionality of geofence warrants? 🔽 Check out a study that I, D. Tsyrenzhapova, J. Collier, J. Gursky, K. Joseff, and S. Woolley published in 2023 🔽 We discuss the merits and uses of geofencing in the context of political campaigning doi.org/10.1177/1354...
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
doi.org
i remember when the cfp for this came around - this should be an interesting special issue to check out.
Aram Sinnreich@aramsinn.bsky.social · 4mo ago🚨 NEW PUBLICATION 🚨 Along with Arthur Soto-Vasquez and Kim Fox, I just coedited a special issue of the Journal of Radio & Audio Media, focused on the role of podcasting in elections. Check it out! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... #commsky #mediasky #academia
NEW: air permit applications for a data center being built with investment from google shows it would rely on a natural gas power plant that emits more than 4.5 million tons of greenhouse gasses each year google has publicly touted its commitment to renewables but appears to be privately eyeing gas
A New Google-Funded Data Center Will Be Powered by a Massive Gas Plant
Documents show that one of Google’s new data centers would be powered by a natural gas plant that emits millions of tons of emissions each year—an increasingly common trend in the industry.
wired.com
NEW: The government tells Americans to use VPNs to protect their privacy. The government also automatically presumes communications of unknown origin are foreign. Foreign communications don't require a warrant to wiretap. Lawmakers who've done the math want answers. My latest @wired.com:
Using a VPN May Subject You to NSA Spying
US lawmakers are pressing Tulsi Gabbard to reveal whether using a VPN that connects to overseas servers can strip Americans of their constitutional protections against warrantless surveillance.
wired.com
#OutNow in #iCS In this qualitative paper, Riedl examines how dating app users in the United States navigate safety on Tinder and Bumble, arguing that users rely on community-based strategies rather than platform governance alone. doi.org/10.1080/1369...
Safety work repertoires and dating platforms: how users of Tinder and Bumble manage their safety
Dating apps enjoy some popularity among those looking for relationships, love, casual sexual encounters, and more. While platforms’ infrastructures provide affordances to mitigate safety concerns, ...
doi.org
National Science Foundation: $9 billion total in FY2026
Seung Min Kim@seungminkim1.bsky.social · 5mo agoWASHINGTON (AP) — Pentagon tells Congress the first week of the Iran war cost the US $11.3 billion, an AP source says.