I went to CPAC GB for The Economist. It was... interesting
Sonny Loughran™️
@sonny101.bsky.social
I write about Britain for The Economist
There are plenty of ways you can measure the Premier League's global popularity. My favourite? Google trends data
Your good news for the day - football attendance is booming outside the premier league
Insane thing for a White House Press Secretary to say Trumpism is a Christian nationalist movement sorry not sorry
Anne simply doesn’t miss
Anne Applebaum@anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 2y agoAmerican social media companies write the algorithms that determine what voters read; moderation systems are opaque; political advertising cannot always be tracked. Do European democracies, or any democracies, really have sovereign elections anymore? www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
American social media companies write the algorithms that determine what voters read; moderation systems are opaque; political advertising cannot always be tracked. Do European democracies, or any democracies, really have sovereign elections anymore? www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
Can Europe Stop Elon Musk?
He and other tech oligarchs are making it impossible to conduct free and fair elections anywhere.
theatlantic.com
God I’ve been waiting for Sam Harris to spill the tea on his beef with Elon and it does not disappoint open.substack.com/pub/samharri...
The Trouble with Elon
I didn’t set out to become an enemy of the world’s richest man, but I seem to have managed it all the same.
open.substack.com
Best nugget of info Bluesky has given me yet
Slippy@damnslippy.slippy.me · 2y agoSincerely delighted to discover, 45 minutes into this nearly-wordless three-hour documentary about French monks who take vows of silence, that among the reasons they *can* talk is "to make sure the monastery cats know when it's mealtime by making little kitty-calling noises at them."
This is bad - the West continues to lose the information war (in part) because we have managed to polarise the topic of disinformation itself Peak times www.france24.com/en/live-news...
US agency focused on foreign disinformation shuts down
A leading US government agency that tracks foreign disinformation has terminated its operations, the State Department said Tuesday, after Congress failed to extend its funding following years of Repub...
france24.com
I know nothing about poetry but I’m obsessed with the Kipling poem in the 28 Years Later trailer It’s about the maddening effect of endless marching on soldiers in the Boer war The recording is over 100 years old and its so haunting I literally can’t stop listening to it youtu.be/s9RYG-iMdx0?...
'Boots' by Rudyard Kipling - recited by Taylor Holmes
YouTube video by Vizler András
youtu.be
We were talking about the joys of the old man boozer on R2 today and I was reminded of George Orwell’s incredible essay on the qualities of a great pub a genuinely hilarious and insightful read on what seems like a trivial topic from the 🐐
Seen people dunking on this and though idk about dictators themselves being doctors, cognitively/emotionally speaking, authoritarianism is 100% associated with feelings of disgust (and therefore purification) that are rooted in an evolutionary aversion to disease etc Soooo kind of a based take?
If you are the social media manager for a massive international organisation plz just don’t post this i am now on a prepping website buying essentials for my bugout bag
WHO@who.int · 2y ago🚨 Experts are being deployed to Panzi, in the southwest of the Democratic Republic of the #Congo, to support health authorities in investigating a yet undiagnosed disease. Laboratory tests are underway to identify the cause.
i'm reading Annie Jacobsen's book about nuclear war and it includes some genuinely insane details about how the end of the world would actually go down like the US President having 6 mins to decide how America should respond to a first strike while being evacuated from the White House - crazy
A (not so) quick thread on disinformation and its growing place in inter-state competition 🧵 1/
The distinction between mis- and disinformation is sooo important yet is so often missing from mainstream discussion I just wrote a piece breaking down disinfo and information warfare as waged by Putin’s Russia - I hope it underlines the disinfo side of the problem! quillette.com/2024/11/24/t...
The Kremlin’s Bots, Trolls, and Influencers
Russia’s information war against the West is a comprehensive, coordinated effort to manipulate the information ecosystems of entire societies.
quillette.com
Brent Lee@brentlee.bsky.social · 2y agoMisinformation? Disinformation? What's the difference? A very simple and festive explainer. 🎅 Credit: 🎨 @felixuncia.bsky.social 🧠 @brentlee.bsky.social
The gap between these two lines directly correlates with my mental well-being
The Extra Inch (Spurs Podcast)@theextrainch.bsky.social · 2y ago
truly remarkable statement from a former Israeli defence minister and IDF chief of staff “Ya’alon said that Israel’s leadership, driven by far-right elements who seek to resettle Gaza, was taking the country down a path of ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip” www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahus-e...
Netanyahu's ex-defense chief Ya'alon warns Israel on path of 'ethnic cleansing' in Gaza | The Times of Israel
timesofisrael.com
Dylan Williams@dylanwilliams.bsky.social · 2y agoIsraeli former defense minister says Israel is engaged in ethnic cleansing in Gaza: “What is happening there? There is no Beit Lahia, there is no Beit Hanoun, [the military] are currently operating in Jabalia and are essentially cleansing the area of Arabs.” www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahus-e...
How outrage drives the spread of online misinformation. New work from @killianmcloughlin.bsky.social with Bluesky luminaries @klonick.bsky.social, @mjcrockett.bsky.social, @williambrady.bsky.social and colleagues. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adl2829
Misinformation exploits outrage to spread online
We tested a hypothesis that misinformation exploits outrage to spread online, examining generalizability across multiple platforms, time periods, and classifications of misinformation. Outrage is high...
science.org
I wrote this - about the fact that social housing is typically let with bare floorboards, and about the brilliant woman from St Albans who's on a mission to help people on low incomes carpet their homes. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
The woman helping council tenants carpet their homes
Pia Honey is campaigning for social housing to come with flooring as standard.
bbc.co.uk
If you’re a disinformation skeptic (I know you’re out there) plz do read this and tell me if & why you’re unconvinced. I’m almost becoming a one issue voter on the issue so am in need of some dissenting opinions
Quillette@quillette.bsky.social · 2y agoRussia’s information war against the West is a comprehensive, coordinated effort to manipulate the information ecosystems of entire societies, argues Sonny Loughran. quillette.com/2024/11/24/t...