Thought experiment for contemporary journalists: How impartial can you get before you emerge from the other side of the cloud as a fascist?

Josh Taylor@joshtaylor.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Tend to agree with the theory that he's trying to get fired by Nine for the complete "I've been cancelled" pipeline. www.theguardian.com/media/2026/j...

I was waiting to see what the old boys' journo club digest had to say about this. Sigh. Nobody with a megaphone has learned anything. Shameful.

Andy Fleming@slackbastard.bsky.social · 4mo ago

'Pascal says more or less: "Kneel down, move your lips in prayer, and you will believe".' ― Louis Althusser, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The ocean has shielded us from the worst of climate change. Now it is running a fever | Karina Von Schuckmann

Nearly every indicator of climate change is flashing red. But we still hold the tools available to bring the planet back into balance

theguardian.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 · 4mo ago

Interim 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

This should be shared very very widely. Super important.

Ben Collins@bencollins.bsky.social · 4mo ago

This is bombshell stuff.

Imagine if instead of selling the house investment racket all these years they’d left house prices alone and kept wages growth moving… Can you imagine a 100k deposit without any interventionist policy? It’s almost like this neoliberal fever dream was always arbitrary

Greg Jericho@grogsgamut.bsky.social · 4mo ago

House prices may fall by 10%? Oh no. Not that. My column. www.theguardian.com/business/gro...

House prices might fall 10% gee, that would take the average dwelling price from $1.1m to... err $1m www.theguardian.com/business/gro...

*Dystopia intensifies* (god this does make some AI cos seem a bit fasc doesn’t it - is fasc capitalism a thing yet?)

Kate Ross@kateross.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Zoom Books buys and destroys thousands of old books to train AI algorithms www.democrata.es/en/digital-a...

The Australia Institute has proposed a Climate Disaster Levy on fossil fuel exports to ensure the companies exporting fossil fuels pay for some of the damage they are causing, rather than leaving Australians to foot the bill. ✍️ Add your name to the petition now! https://theaus.in/4dL8Cp0

“…hallucinated references disproportionately assign credit to already prominent and male scholars, suggesting that LLM-generated errors may reinforce existing inequities in scientific recognition…” 🧪 arxiv.org/abs/2605.07723

LLM hallucinations in the wild: Large-scale evidence from non-existent citations

Large language models (LLMs) are known to generate plausible but false information across a wide range of contexts, yet the real-world magnitude and consequences of this hallucination problem remain p...

arxiv.org

Here's @lucyham.bsky.social "We do not have a sovereign PM, we have a PR manager for corporate extraction"

We do not have a sovereign PM, we have a PR manager for corporate extraction - The Shot

The ultra rich are crushing living standards and protest rights. There is a parallel in the brutality against Palestinians and in America's gulags. We do not have long to challenge the trajectory.

theshot.net.au

Aforementioned siq article is here - open access!! Here we problematise dominant discourse of authenticity as indexicality to demonstrate how the concept is subject to practical and political negotiation in AI controversies. Me and coauthors are very, very proud doi.org/10.1177/0163...

Authenticity controversies: Witness media and generative AI imagery - Phoebe Matich, Michael Richardson, Jean Burgess, 2026

This article explores how AI-generated content reconfigures struggles over authenticity in witness media. Media witnessing is traditionally understood as a rela...

doi.org

I’ve been off this app for a MINUTE but after a really intense six (~14) months post-PhD, I’ve now deleted instagram, exited a situation that was way too cognitively heavy, published a sick (siqq) article, and am falling in love with my life again ✨💐 also Brisbane is getting cold again! Huzzah!

It’s the very last week to complete our Voice AI survey - closing 17 April! We’re dying to hear what everyday Australian adults think about this emerging tech - it’s v important to us that our data reflects non-academic, lay viewpoints. Please submit a response if you haven’t already!

Voice AI Authenticity and Media - ADM+S Centre

admscentre.org.au

ADM+S Centre@admscentre.org.au · 7mo ago

Do you listen to podcasts, radio, audiobooks or other audio media? Do you think you have ever heard an AI-Generated voice? Take part in our online survey and help researchers find out how everyday Australian adults think and feel about Voice AI admscentre.org/VoiceAIMedia #VoiceAI #CitizenScience

We are so thrilled to have launched our Voice AI survey last week!! As part of the ADM+S's Generative Authenticity project, we're finding out everyday Australians' thoughts and feelings about Voice AI in audio media, so we can design targeted future media research. We would love to hear from you!

ADM+S Centre@admscentre.org.au · 7mo ago

Do you listen to podcasts, radio, audiobooks or other audio media? Do you think you have ever heard an AI-Generated voice? Take part in our online survey and help researchers find out how everyday Australian adults think and feel about Voice AI admscentre.org/VoiceAIMedia #VoiceAI #CitizenScience

Who the fuck would listen to Howard push back against gun reform in the wake of the biggest tragedy in decades (and no one is saying it’s just gun reform which is needed, ofc hate in all forms, including anti-Semitism is horrendous) and come to the conclusion that THIS is the take?!

With the social media ban starting in Australia today for Australians under 16, it was great to sit down with @antmandan.bsky.social to talk about what the ban entails, and what it'll mean for Australian teens and their parents. open.spotify.com/episode/6IES...

The social media ban: how we got here and what to expect (#37)

open.spotify.com

www.theguardian.com/media/2025/o... “The political and cultural winds in the US have shifted sharply in the right’s favor – and many media companies are proving that they are not pillars of principle so much as extremely sensitive weathervanes.”

Bari Weiss’s ascension to top of CBS News highlights the political winds driving US media rightward

US media giants have bowed before Maga after Trump’s many lawsuits and the Jimmy Kimmel firestorm

theguardian.com

Let it never again be said that a woman with no real reporting experience who fell for a Twitter account called "Official Antifa" cannot be the head of a huge news organization

www.theguardian.com/environment/... It can be done. And Anglo fossil fuel magnates will continue to lose customers before they accept the change, so really governments are the ones who need to clear the path forward by (properly and greenly) regulating the transition!

Global renewable energy generation surpasses coal for first time

Record solar expansion and steady wind growth driving world’s shift away from fossil fuels in 2025, report finds

theguardian.com

A naked descent into authoritarianism is weirdly boring because what’s being debated is fundamentally uninteresting. Is the antifa legion burning down Portlan real or not? Well, let’s have someone look out the window over there. No? Okay. Facts are settled. It either matters or it doesn’t.

Head of the AMA, Danielle McMullen: "There are no studies showing that paracetamol use in pregnancy causes autism." Any journalists giving one iota of credence to Trump's claims deserve to be sacked for propagating lies.

“The wave of demands are outlined in one of almost 150 submissions to a parliamentary inquiry examining the prevalence of climate change-related misinformation and disinformation.” One of the biggest concerns I have is that environmental interests are misidentified as misinformation 😠

Intelligence agencies should report on foreign interests in ‘activist groups’, Australian coal lobby group argues

Coal Australia also wants government to broaden restrictions on foreign donations to stop money flowing to environmental groups

theguardian.com

i just know we're all going to have to sit through a three minute clip of joe rogan saying "i can't believe censorship is happening"

Contrary to Trump’s claim that “the radical left causes tremendous violence,” sociologists find that right-wing extremists account for the vast majority of attacks and deaths from domestic terrorism. buff.ly/XOaVJUZ

Right-wing extremist violence is more frequent and more deadly than left-wing violence − what the data shows

Donald Trump and top administration officials confidently assert that left-wing political violence is a huge problem in the US. They’re wrong, say researchers who study extremism.

theconversation.com