Ned Watt
@nedwatt.bsky.social
PhD candidate at the DMRC and ADM+S researching independent fact checking and genAI. Lover of dad rock, folk, and skramz in all multitudes 🍉
The album I recorded drums with my band during my PhD is finally released. Free to listen but also $5 to download with ALL proceeds going to Palestinian mutual-aid group The Sameer Project and Meanjin-based First-Nations led abolitionist org Sisters Inside prizepony.bandcamp.com/album/prize-...
Prize Pony, by Prize Pony
6 track album
prizepony.bandcamp.com
I am helping @ashwinnag.bsky.social with an important project trying to understand what makes decentralised platforms like Bluesky prosocial. Anyone who sees this message and cares about the state of online platforms is eligible to participate - we'd really appreciate your help.
Ashwin Nagappa@ashwinnag.bsky.social · 2mo agoInterim update on the Group concept-mapping study for the Decentered Social project. decenteredsocial.info/1dyd We are now sorting and rating statements from the brainstorming phase. If you have the capacity and are keen to participate, please use this link to join: forms.office.com/r/mMbjjvXgXB
how come world shattering revelations like this come out about the tech industry and it's leaders on a regular basis yet it has no real world consequences on them. in fact, governments are pushing the tech down our throats
dell cameron@dell.bsky.social · 2mo agoNEW: A trove of internal records from Dialog, the secret society cofounded by Peter Thiel, was left exposed online. WIRED obtained a second cache of records that reveal who's really attending, how they're screened, and what personal details they were promised would stay private.
More than 20 others were injured in the attack, which came hours after the funeral of the head of Hamas’s armed wing.
Israeli attack on Gaza City kills at least 10, including four children
More than 20 others were injured in the attack, which came hours after the funeral of the head of Hamas's armed wing.
aljazeera.com
🥴 One of the issues with the present community notes structure on social media platforms (in addition to the fact that they aren't often fast enough to head off misinfo spread) is that they can be vulnerable to brigading tactics...and now, AI-based bot 'fact checkers'...
8 AI bots now write 50% of X’s Community Notes
The crowdsourced moderation project faces a choice between scale and legitimacy
indicator.media
AI detection systems are optimized to identify manipulated humans, not synthetic environments, disasters, or infrastructure, write shirin anlen and Zuzanna Wojciak. As generative AI increasingly permeates climate-related misinformation, this limitation will become more visible and more dangerous.
AI Detection Was Built for Faces. Climate Deception Targets Environments.
If trust in reality collapses during environmental crises, the consequences will extend beyond misinformation, write WITNESS's shirin anlen and Zuzanna Wojciak.
buff.ly
Is digital sovereignty the silver bullet that can solve world problems and make online communication safe, equitable, and truly beneficial? In this Conversation article, Dan Angus and I unpack what “digital sovereignty” really means for everyday users of digital technology. tinyurl.com/5eya2d8p 1/5
Nearly everything we use online is owned by big tech. There’s a better way forward
Having digital autonomy is more important than ever, and the European Union is showing how it can be done.
tinyurl.com
EOI: Postdoctoral Research Associate The QUT Digital Media Research Centre is currently seeking applicants for a 12-month Postdoctoral Research Associate (PDRA) position to contribute to an ARC Laureate Fellowship project. Applications close 19 June 2026. research.qut.edu.au/dmrc/wp-cont...
Happy to have another piece out in @crikey.com.au today, about the decline of The Daily Wire. www.crikey.com.au/2026/05/14/s...
Slow death of Ben Shapiro's Facebook juggernaut shines light on right-wing media's vapourware
Whipping its audience into a frenzied outrage with stories of societal decay and selling 'leftist tears' mugs, the Daily Wire is a story of trumped up success — and the fracturing of the American righ...
crikey.com.au
This counter terrorism white paper designating “pro-transgender groups” as terror threats to be neutralised is monstrous. Shame on the US administration, shame on US allies that continue to treat this as normal or acceptable. www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...
The Queensland Government’s safety concerns about e-bikes and scooters reads like this article from The New York Times in 1894… — timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine...
Hello world, I'm moving down to Melbourne in a couple of weeks right around the time I lodge my thesis for examination. If you're an Australian-based academic looking for an RA with expertise in AI, literary/critical theory and digital media, please get in touch!
Re-sharing this since BlueSky was down yesterday ~
Dan@dannno0o.bsky.social · 4mo agoSo happy to have my first journal article published today! I argue that LLMs animate a paradox in which similarity only emerges through difference. I show how this paradox is operationalised by LLMs as they generate a natural language response (1/2) link.springer.com/article/10.1...
So happy to have my first journal article published today! I argue that LLMs animate a paradox in which similarity only emerges through difference. I show how this paradox is operationalised by LLMs as they generate a natural language response (1/2) link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Whether you use, develop, or moderate decentralised social media, your ideas for making these spaces safer and more welcoming matter. Join our ongoing asynchronous brainstorm and share your thoughts. Signup form here forms.office.com/r/mMbjjvXgXB Project details here tinyurl.com/44adp9cx
"A $10K Bounty Awaits Anyone Who Can Hack Ring Cameras to Stop Sharing Data With Amazon" www.wired.com/story/a-10k-...
A $10K Bounty Awaits Anyone Who Can Hack Ring Cameras to Stop Sharing Data With Amazon
The Fulu Foundation, a nonprofit that pays out bounties for removing user-hostile features, is hunting for a way to keep Ring cameras from sending data to Amazon—without breaking the hardware.
wired.com
Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson has passed away at the age of 84. My thoughts are with his family. I wanted to share this clip from his appearance on Sesame Street in 1971. His important words ring just as true today as they did back then.
“In times of crisis Australians are great at doing the right thing morally and socially, which is also the smart thing economically. What would it take to do so all the time?” - Lukas Ringland Read the full piece on The Point: https://theaus.in/3OeQxqx
A must watch.
stranger@strangerous.bsky.social · 6mo agoDr Jeremy Walker details the “enormous war chest” of Advance & lists funders inc Gina Rinehart, James Packer, IPA board, Woodside’s Charles Goode & “the priv foundation of Jillian Segal” - who pay Advance to “flood social media with aggressive Far Right disinformation”🔥 #auspol
Many of my friends who have adopted Ring style doorbell cameras aren’t aware that these technologies serve markets far beyond the front door. I get the anxiety and the ‘what if’ logic of security, but these cameras give me the ick! Keeping an anxious poodle is a better security option imo
WeRateDogs@weratedogs.com · 6mo agowe need to talk about that Ring Super Bowl ad
As always - remember this is what they do when they know they are being filmed.
Senator David Shoebridge@davidshoebridge.bsky.social · 6mo agoShared with us from Sydney happening now. He had his hands up.
Bannon (and his buddies) are using an informational strategy called reflexive control that intentionally exploits the reaction of his adversaries (on the left) to inflict damage on their own side. Don't become an unwitting agent in their information operation.
Any time Sky News Australia comes up in discourse, please feel most welcome and free to cite this research, which shows empirically that is is a propaganda machine. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Sky News Australia as network propaganda: how a niche cable channel became an international right-wing propaganda machine - Simon Copland, Axel Bruns, Timothy Graham, 2025
In the past decade or so, the right-wing news channel, Sky News Australia, has pivoted to publishing online content that speaks to broadly right-wing audiences ...
journals.sagepub.com
Hey BlueSky, most of you have access to internet connectivity that the people of Iran currently do not. Do me a favour and share this podcast episode from the DMRC Digital Publics group. We can no longer accept catastrophic silence. Solidarity means paying attention and creating visibility
The Iranian digital blackout, and how you can help (#37)
Podcast Episode · Read Them Sideways · 02/02/2026 · 53m
podcasts.apple.com
theconversation.com/iran-protest... Great article contextualising the crisis in Iran and how it connects with rising authoritarianism and erosion in institutional trust and trustworthiness
Iran protests are not just about economics – they’re a full-blown ideological crisis
Iran’s young population is educated and connected to the world: even state violence cannot deny their freedom in the long run.
theconversation.com
Hundreds of faces among thousands, truly gutted by the atrocities we are seeing the Iranian regime perpetrate on its own people
Shayan Sardarizadeh @shayan86.bsky.social · 7mo agoWe analysed 392 photos of victims leaked to us after they were displayed in a mortuary in Tehran and were able to identify 326 people. Sources claimed the true number of dead at the mortuary ran into the thousands. Many of the victims were too disfigured to be identified.
