I'm biased, but this report is a must-read for anyone looking to understand the state of AI in 2025. It explains how AI is entrenching power for big tech and the oligarch class, speeding deregulation, dislodging human expertise and threatening workers—and how there's still time to refuse all that.

🎧 Thrilled to be featured on this podcast series on AI and the media industries. The episode explores how streamers like Netflix use audience data and how this impacts creative practices. Hosts: Paul McDonald & @aorcuncan.bsky.social Production: Melis Uslu Link: open.spotify.com/episode/2s5U...

Screen Workers and Streaming Data - Nina Vindum Rasmussen

Media Industries Podcast · Episode

open.spotify.com

If true, US engagement with an entire continent will be reduced to extraction of its natural resources and counterterrorism, while expecting AI to somehow replace diplomatic relations. This policy discounts effective diplomacy and fundamentally misunderstands the current capabilities of AI tools.

Annette Gordon-Reed@agordonreed.bsky.social · last yr.

The new policy on Africa. “The office would focus on a handful of issues, including “coordinated counterterrorism operations” and “strategic extraction and trade of critical natural resources.” www.nytimes.com/2025/04/20/u...

Privacy isn’t about hiding—it’s about trust and control over our own information. In her #SXSW 2025 Keynote, Signal President, @meredithmeredith.bsky.social breaks down why our privacy matters.

📱📺 My musings on Netflix’s second-screen shows in @theconversationca.bsky.social today. #Netflix #streaming #contentstrategy #secondscreen

The Conversation Canada@ca.theconversation.com · last yr.

Too distracted to watch? Netflix has the perfect ‘second-screen’ show for you

Microsoft Research: GenAI can inhibit critical engagement with work and can potentially lead to long-term overreliance on the tool and diminished skill for independent problem-solving. Microsoft: *sells GenAI aggressively into the Education 365 packages*

Ketan Joshi@ketanjoshi.co · last yr.

Microsoft's own research confirms something that was already pretty obvious: relying on a text generating machine to come up with answers erodes critical thinking, and is a method favoured by those who never liked doing critical thinking in the first place advait.org/files/lee_20...

For years, the public has called them "fake artists." But internally at Spotify, the program has a name: Perfect Fit Content. My investigation, and the first look into my book Mood Machine, is the January cover at @harpers.bsky.social. Online now & on newsstands next week harpers.org/archive/2025...

I spoke to @washingtonpost.com about reports that AI tools are being used with federal data noting that this is occurring without transparency, consent, or attention to privacy and security concerns, and heightening the American public's mistrust of AI www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

Elon Musk’s DOGE is feeding sensitive federal data into AI to target cuts

Department of Government Efficiency workers embedded in the Education Department have been processing sensitive agency data using artificial intelligence.

washingtonpost.com

💥New: How algorithmic events like Spotify Wrapped can reveal what tech companies really ‘know’ about us 👩‍💻 @taylorannabell.bsky.social & @ninavindum.bsky.social #ResearchMethods #SocialScience #Spotify blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

How algorithmic events like Spotify Wrapped can reveal what tech companies really ‘know’ about us

As 2024 drew to a close, Spotify Wrapped once again took centre stage, transforming our personal music habits into vibrant data stories designed to be shared on social media. Based on their creativ…

blogs.lse.ac.uk

New open access book – Critical Data Studies: An A to Z Guide to Concepts and Methods – published by Polity Books. 413 key terms defined & described. Also available as a paperback or hardback. To download or buy visit the publishers website: www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...

Once again, Hollywood unions are leading the fight against AI exploitation from the bottom up. "As holders of those rights in trust, the studios have a fiduciary obligation to protect against the unauthorized use of the works for AI training purposes." www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus...

Writers Guild Calls on Studios to Take “Immediate Legal Action” Against AI Companies

The union is arguing that tech companies "looted the studios’ intellectual property" while Hollywood's major companies stood by.

hollywoodreporter.com

Students should study the humanities not because it makes them better workers but because it rips you open and breaks your brain and changes everything you thought you knew. I *promise* you this. I *promise* it has this ability, no matter how smart you think you are. I have seen it countless times.

Lauren Donovan Ginsberg@laurenginsberg.bsky.social · 2y ago

Hearing the president of KU say that the way the humanities can protect itself - a question asked by a humanities professor of Spanish - is that her field should direct its public voice to how the Spanish language can impact AI versus the third study of an obscure play…. Just sigh.

Please check out @taylorannabell.bsky.social and @ninavindum.bsky.social's thoughtful research on Spotify Wrapped now that it's Wrapped Season.

taylor annabell@taylorannabell.bsky.social · 2y ago

Happy #spotifywrapped day to all those celebrate and eagerly anticipate this algorithmic event like @ninavindum.bsky.social and I some initial observations 🧵

Great piece on the annual spectacle surrounding Wrapped by @amandahoover.bsky.social for @businessinsider.com! Happy to have contributed some thoughts on the way users experience the wrappification of their data together with @taylorannabell.bsky.social. www.businessinsider.com/spotify-wrap...

How Spotify Wrapped taught everyone to give away their data — and love it

The genius business tactic that companies like Starbucks, Tinder, and Duolingo have learned from Spotify's viral data gathering ruse.

businessinsider.com

Necessary reading from @taylorannabell.bsky.social & @ninavindum.bsky.social as everyone starts posting their Spotify Wrapped profiles. (Yes, even if you're doing so ironically): www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Spotify (Un)wrapped: how ordinary users critically reflect on Spotify’s datafication of the self within creative workshops

Each year, Spotify nudges users to share aesthetically pleasing data stories ‘wrapped’ and repackaged from their listening behavior. This article approaches Spotify Wrapped as an annual algorithmic...

tandfonline.com

Happy #spotifywrapped day to all those celebrate and eagerly anticipate this algorithmic event like @ninavindum.bsky.social and I some initial observations 🧵

So happy to have been part of the editorial team for this Algorithms for Her special issue in the Journal of Gender Studies! Great article linked below 👇💖

Nina Vindum Rasmussen@ninavindum.bsky.social · 2y ago

Publication news! 🎺 It’s Wrapped season… and Taylor’s (@taylorannabell.bsky.social) and my article on our Spotify (Un)wrapped project is now out in the Journal of Gender Studies. The article outlines how creative workshops can be used to critically analyse ‘algorithmic events’ like Wrapped.

Spotify wrapped queens @ninavindum.bsky.social @taylorannabell.bsky.social with a GOLD key about the “algorithmic event” as “a moment in time in which there is a collective orientation towards a particular algorithmic system and its associated data”; these two are also epic at running workshops 🫶✨

Nina Vindum Rasmussen@ninavindum.bsky.social · 2y ago

Publication news! 🎺 It’s Wrapped season… and Taylor’s (@taylorannabell.bsky.social) and my article on our Spotify (Un)wrapped project is now out in the Journal of Gender Studies. The article outlines how creative workshops can be used to critically analyse ‘algorithmic events’ like Wrapped.

Huge thanks to our participants for their enthusiasm, creativity and insights like this one: 'Spotify - with the personality things - is trying to make everyone feel like "oh, they're special in their music taste", but we are all listening to Taylor Swift and crying about our lives.’

Publication news! 🎺 It’s Wrapped season… and Taylor’s (@taylorannabell.bsky.social) and my article on our Spotify (Un)wrapped project is now out in the Journal of Gender Studies. The article outlines how creative workshops can be used to critically analyse ‘algorithmic events’ like Wrapped.

Spotify (Un)wrapped: how ordinary users critically reflect on Spotify’s datafication of the self within creative workshops

Each year, Spotify nudges users to share aesthetically pleasing data stories ‘wrapped’ and repackaged from their listening behavior. This article approaches Spotify Wrapped as an annual algorithmic...

doi.org

Our publication '(Un)disclosed brand partnerships: How platform policies and interfaces shape commercial content for influencers' - a multidisciplinary collaboration with @laade.bsky.social & @cgoanta.bsky.social - is now available open access policyreview.info/articles/ana... ⤵️