My new chapter, “Virtual Heartlands: Populism, Emotion, and the Spirit of Place in Virtual Reality,” is out in "Media and the Spirit of Populism," edited by Katja Valaskivi, Johanna Sumiala, Kaisa Tiusanen, Helmi Halonen. www.routledge.com/Media-and-th...

Media and the Spirit of Populism

Media and the Spirit of Populism explores the role of contemporary media in the formation, dissemination, and circulation of the spirit of populism. These cutting- edge contributions to the field, wri...

routledge.com

In this blog post, I discuss how virtual reality is becoming a medium for immersive grievance politics. The promise of immersive proximity to real or imagined places, experiences, and events has made VR attractive to a wide range of storytellers, including propagandists.

PLEDGE Horizon project@pledge-project.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Immersion is not neutral. #PLEDGE Blogpost #12 shows how VR becomes a medium for grievance politics, turning victimhood, heroism & ressentiment into lived experience. Storyliving → affective bonding → political meaning 🔗 bitly.cx/LkY81 #VirtualReality #GrievancePolitics #PoliticalEmotions #EU

What is "virtual history"? I had the opportunity to contribute a comment on Lucian Hölscher’s Koselleck Lecture in Bielefeld University (2023). It has now been published, alongside other comments by Chris Lorenz & Britta Hochkirchen, in a new open-access book. ⬇️

Lisa Regazzoni@lisaregazzoni.bsky.social · 7mo ago

🛎️ The second volume of the BiUP Bielefeld Theory Talks series is now out. It features Lucian Hölscher’s reflections on virtual history, followed by commentaries by Britta Hochkirchen, Chris Lorenz, and @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social 👇 bielefelduniversitypress.de/publikatione...

The Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service has stopped sharing certain information with the United States: “Sometimes we no longer share things,” officials say, because the information has been finding its way into Kremlin hands. www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/n...

Nederlandse diensten delen minder informatie met de VS: ‘Soms vertellen we dingen niet meer’

Het aantal dreigingen dat op Nederland afkomt is groot, zien de hoofden van de AIVD en de MIVD elke dag: niet alleen Russische agressie, maar ook de opmars van China als digitale macht en binnenlands ...

volkskrant.nl

"In reality, AI erodes academic freedom, weakens critical reading, and subordinates the pursuit of knowledge to corporate interests." www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/a... (archive: archive.ph/Y6855)

AI Is Hollowing Out Higher Education

Olivia Guest & Iris van Rooij urge teachers and scholars to reject tools that commodify learning, deskill students, and promote illiteracy.

project-syndicate.org

Europe's DSA: "Under that law, platforms must submit regular transparency reports, partake in risk audits and act quickly to remove illegal content." Trump/Big Tech companies want to get rid of it so they can filter the world through their extremist algorithms.

Tech Policy Press@techpolicypress.bsky.social · 10mo ago

The Trump administration appears to be engaged in a dramatic project to replace the United States’ traditional European alliances, with tech policy and culture wars over social media a key to the effort, Tech Policy Press contributing editor @dwj88.bsky.social writes.

Whistleblower testimonies by former Meta's employees describe how VR safety research was manipulated and findings erased that showed young children being exposed to grooming, sexual harassment and violence in its 3D worlds. Can't say I am surprised.

Senate Judiciary Democrats 🇺🇸@judiciarydems.senate.gov · 11mo ago

Meta whistleblower: I worked in some of Meta’s most sensitive spaces. I’m here because it’s evident that Meta consistently chooses profit over safety.

Murdoch is getting TikTok. Now the Fox News social platform.

Trump says Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch likely part of US TikTok investor group

US president tells Fox News ‘a man named Lachlan is involved … that’s a very unusual name, Lachlan Murdoch’

theguardian.com

Before you buy the brand new Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses with the EMG wristband, you should be aware that measurement of the muscle response to electrical activity with EMG can capture and help infer highly sensitive information.

🧵👇

Olga Onuch@oonuch.bsky.social · 11mo ago

I am surprised by how many people are missing the fact that the kinetic component and reaction to it (and seeking to prevent it the future) when it comes to the Russian drone attack on Poland is likely not “the main event” - that’s the cognitive warfare that unfolded thereafter.

My new project "Halbwachs in the Metaverse: Storyliving and democracy in the age of immersive spatial computing" begins today. Warm thanks to @koneensaatio.fi for supporting my work! Over the next 3 years, I'll explore how XR is reshaping political communication and digital politics. Stay tuned!

we obtained footage of an agent in the middle of a raid at a Home Depot wearing Meta's smart glasses, and talked to experts about what that means: www.404media.co/a-cbp-agent-...

A CBP Agent Wore Meta Smart Glasses to an Immigration Raid in Los Angeles

Video obtained and verified by 404 Media shows a CBP official wearing Meta's AI glasses, which are capable of recording and connecting with AI. “I think it should be seen in the context of an agency t...

404media.co

OpenAI: "'We can begin to close the gap between those with access to learning resources and high-quality education and those who have been historically left behind,' says OpenAI’s head of education, Leah Belsky." Me: Read Roderic Crooks' Access Is Capture: How EdTech Reproduces Racial Inequality.

OpenAI is launching a version of ChatGPT for college students

Study Mode helps students walk through topics rather than just giving them answers. But there’s a glaring problem.

technologyreview.com

What a truly horrible idea.

404 Media@404media.co · last yr.

The UN Made AI-Generated Refugees 🔗 www.404media.co/the-un-made-...

A strong statement of resistance to the relentless marketing of "AI" in education spaces. I encourage all educators to have a look and consider signing on: openletter.earth/an-open-lett...

An open letter from educators who refuse the call to adopt GenAI in education

openletter.earth

Over the past two days, I attended the UN Virtual Worlds Day 2025, focused on "the future with AI-powered virtual worlds". Some of the recurrently used words when speaking about the future during the event were: equitable, inclusive, human-centric, resilient, inclusive, civic engagement, safe.

A while ago @greeneujournal.bsky.social invited me to contribute a short piece to their new edition on the theme of freedom. I wrote about extended reality, emotional manipulation, and emerging forms of disinformation (& what this means for our freedom). www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/snapshots-gr...

Snapshots: Grief, Extended Reality, Hope

As our emotions are triggered and compromised in a changing world, what are the indications for our freedom?

greeneuropeanjournal.eu

My new article is out in International Journal of Qualitative Methods! I introduce a methodological framework for the qualitative analysis of virtual reality content.

I'd argue the same is true about teaching: you cannot responsibly teach about AI without teaching about politics and the political projects being pursued by and through AI.

Brian Merchant@bcmerchant.bsky.social · last yr.

You cannot responsibly write about AI without writing about politics. "AI" is an intensely political project, especially in its current formation, where development is led by tech giants that increasingly depend on the state—for contracts, land rights, and, of course, for deregulation.

"What if AI had eyes?". XR wearables are becoming the delivery system for AI. This means richer data, more tracking, more granular inference-making about your patterns of attention, interaction, movement. Which means more opportunities for manipulation and control.

The Verge@theverge.com · last yr.

Xreal teases Project Aura smart glasses for Android XR

Nearly half of British youth would rather be young in a world with no internet. It’s a damning indictment of what social media has become. As its harms continue to grow, governments need to act — but they must take the right measures instead of reaching for easy fixes.

Social media must be reined in

Countries are adopting higher age limits, but they need to tackle addictive design practices that target everyone

disconnect.blog

"Mark Zuckerberg Says Social Media Is Over. During testimony at Meta’s antitrust trial, the Facebook founder’s argument was, in so many words, that platforms like his are not what they used to be." www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...

Mark Zuckerberg Says Social Media Is Over

During testimony at Meta’s antitrust trial, the Facebook founder’s argument was, in so many words, that platforms like his are not what they used to be.

newyorker.com

Marketed as "memory tools", these AI wearables record all your conversations (also those of people around you), provide transcripts and summaries of your life, lists of notable moments and to-do lists, learn assumptions about you, and analyze your emotions through voice tone and inflection.

The Verge@theverge.com · last yr.

The AI wearables are always listening

Just out! My interview with @tvn24.pl on VR and history education, and the darker potential of this technology: "VR in the Service of Patriotism? The Perfect Technology for Propagandists." VR isn't just about storytelling, it's about storyliving and emotional scripting. tvn24.pl/.../indoktry....

"She was at a lesson. Her brain — at war. Pola from class 8C has PTSD." @tvn24.pl, a leading Polish news channel, has just published a long investigative article about how war-themed VR films shown in Polish school-history lessons triggered a full-blown PTSD in a student.

Massive amounts of Russian propaganda (3,600,000 articles in 2024) are incorporated in Western AI, infecting their responses with false claims & propaganda. ChatGPT, Grok, Copilot, Meta AI, Google Gemini & Perplexity repeated disinformation by the Pravda network. www.france24.com/en/live-news...

Russian disinformation 'infects' AI chatbots, researchers warn

A sprawling Russian disinformation network is manipulating Western AI chatbots to spew pro-Kremlin propaganda, researchers say, at a time when the United States is reported to have paused its cyber op...

france24.com

Western countries failing to develop effective deterrence against an increasingly aggressive GRU gray zone campaign www.csis.org/analysis/rus...

Russia’s Shadow War Against the West

Russia is conducting a violent and escalating campaign of sabotage and subversion against European and U.S. targets in Europe led by Russian military intelligence, according to a new CSIS database. Th...

csis.org

Russia has been conducting Operation Ghostwriter in Poland with the aim to: *Disrupt Poland's relations with the US & NATO. *Disrupt Polish-Ukrainian relations. *Discredit the aid provided to Ukraine. *Create conditions for the outbreak of social unrest in Poland. wyborcza.pl/7,173236,300...

Putin's Agents of Chaos: How Pro-Russian Trolls Poison Poland's Infosphere

Welcome to the dark world of Putinophiles and super-spreaders of pro-Russian propaganda. The Polish infosphere is filled with them. Some have seeped deep into government structures.

wyborcza.pl

The Heritage Foundation is now planning to destroy the EU - with the help of Polish and Hungarian partners vsquare.org/heritage-fou...

Renaming the EU, Dismantling the Commission: For What Polish and Hungarian Illiberals Seek U.S. Backing - VSquare.org

The Trump administration's most influential think tank, The Heritage Foundation, is receiving proposals from illiberal forces in Poland and Hungary on how to shape the future of the European Union. Th...

vsquare.org