Shame on the cabal of top scientists who mocked me and other dissidents for challenging their sordid Covid origins cover-up. It is now beyond doubt that they betrayed both humanity and science - and there should be retribution. My MoS column mol.im/a/16005037

Scientists mocked my Covid leak theory but I was right: IAN BIRRELL

Like many others, I was struck by the strange 'coincidence' that Covid erupted in the city with a secretive lab containing the world's biggest repository of bat coronaviruses.

mol.im

Even running a HEPA unit indoors when the AQI is in the Hazardous range outside may not improve your indoor AQI to the "Good" range. My colleague @wisconsam.bsky.social improved their AQI from Purple (borderline Very Unhealthy) to Orange (Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups) by running HEPA in the room.

sam@wisconsam.bsky.social · 3w ago

In case u needed evidence of the value of a HEPA air purifier. The two circled sensors on these maps are indoors. The pink is mine, and you can see how the air quality has improved 2hr moving our air filter to the room where the sensor is. Meanwhile, the other sensor reading continues to climb.

Zeynep put it well

zeynep tufekci@zey.bsky.social · 4w ago

The FIFA VAR interesting as window into how algorithmic governance can operate in practice outside of the China context: highly-surveillant and high-tech (ball sensor, graphs, etc.) accompanied by a form of transparency (replays, etc.) without accountability and still essentially a blackbox.

The FIFA VAR interesting as window into how algorithmic governance can operate in practice outside of the China context: highly-surveillant and high-tech (ball sensor, graphs, etc.) accompanied by a form of transparency (replays, etc.) without accountability and still essentially a blackbox.

Happy birthday, USA! 🇺🇸 Thousands of locals and tourists alike flooded lower Manhattan to catch a glimpse of the Tall Ships parade while military planes flew overtop. 📸: Angela Weiss and Joseph Prezioso via AFP via Getty Images; Vincent Alban and Jeremy Weine via Getty Images Read: bit.ly/4fmAgd5

Tall ships and airplanes along the Hudson River as they participate in the Sail4th250 in New York City, Saturday morning.

New York To Host Historic Tall Ship Parade To Celebrate America's 250th Anniversary - News 12 Brooklyn, Sail4th 250 via Marine Insight

New York To Host Historic Tall Ship Parade To Celebrate America's 250th Anniversary - News 12 Brooklyn, Sail4th 250 via Marine Insight

Marine Insight - The maritime industry guide.

marineinsight.com

I know it’s not a popular position but I really don’t see mass unemployment from generative AI soon because of structural and technical features of the tech. Gift link where I explain the reasons. It’s distraction when AI will really cause many other big problems. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/30/o...

Neil Turkewitz@neilturkewitz.bsky.social · last mo.

“GenAI as it currently exists cannot easily replace human beings, because it cannot manifest human intelligence. That won’t stop it, however, from destabilizing society in ways more profound than we might even imagine.” @zey.bsky.social We need to focus less on the frontier & more on the homeland.

There's a great deal that's alarming about the Prairieland sentencing, regardless of how one views the shooter, but the biggest deal is 30 years for a man who wasn't there, convicted of moving a box of zines while knowing protesters. Consider the implications. theintercept.com/2026/06/23/p...

Prairieland Defendant Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison for Moving a Box of Antifascist Zines

Anti-ICE activists received lengthy prison terms — including a 100-year sentence — in the first major trial of the NSPM-7 era.

theintercept.com

I’m honored to be giving the 2026 US-UK Fulbright Distinguished Lecture, titled “Are We Having the Wrong Nightmares about AI?” The in-person event in London is completely full, but there is a free livestream: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dr-zeynep-...

Dr Zeynep Tufekci: Are We Having the Wrong Nightmares about AI? (Online)

Internationally renowned techno-sociologist and New York Times columnist Dr Zeynep Tufekci delivers the 2026 Fulbright Distinguished Lecture

eventbrite.co.uk

The New York Times is hiring a national science correspondent job-boards.greenhouse.io/thenewyorkti...

Worrying about our response to the Hantavirus outbreak isn’t about calculating the odds of a pandemic. We’re not gamblers in a prediction market. We should do what we can do control all such outbreaks, and the earlier and smarter we act, the easier it is. Gift link www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/o...

Opinion | We Should Take Hantavirus More Seriously

nytimes.com

zeynep tufekci@zey.bsky.social · 3mo ago

One outbreak of concern and the entire “sane” side of the public health immediately resorted back to the paternalism of telling us not to worry, this isn’t another COVID, etc. They didn’t learn a thing. We didn’t appoint them to be our therapists or parents. Provide info, don’t dictate how to feel.

One outbreak of concern and the entire “sane” side of the public health immediately resorted back to the paternalism of telling us not to worry, this isn’t another COVID, etc. They didn’t learn a thing. We didn’t appoint them to be our therapists or parents. Provide info, don’t dictate how to feel.

I am honored to share the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Best International Reporting with Dake Kang, Byron Tau, Aniruddha Ghosal and Garance Burke for our reporting revealing how Silicon Valley largely designed and built China's surveillance state and enabled human rights abuses.

NEW: FCC to direct eight Disney-owned TV stations to file early license renewals, a source says, adding that the "unprecedented" action was directly tied to ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel's recent joke about first lady Melania Trump.

FCC to direct Disney-owned TV stations to file early license renewals, source says

The source said the "unprecedented" action was directly tied to ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel's recent joke about first lady Melania Trump.

nbcnews.to

Tufekci's keynote here remains the best framing for how to think about AI, IMO. The key changes will be in what things become cheap/easy and what things remain expensive/hard. AI will remove a lot of friction. Some of that friction is load bearing. bsky.app/profile/zey....

zeynep tufekci@zey.bsky.social · 5mo ago

My Princeton AI and society team is at the AI Safety summit in Paris. My Neurips keynote for our approach: slideslive.com/39055698/are... Our paper: ai.sociology.princeton.edu Say hi especially if you are *utterly* unimpressed by the current doom or hype models. Wrong nightmares!

“A whole civilization will die tonight,” Trump declares.

I reviewed @mollycrabapple.bsky.social 's terrific new history of the Bund — a great read but more importantly, a book that could not have arrived at a more urgent moment. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/06/b...

What Does Judaism Look Like Without Zionism?

nytimes.com

The AP is reporting that Sharif University in Tehran has been bombed. This is Maryam Mirzakhani’s alma mater — the first woman to win a Fields Medal in math, and only one of two so far. The university is also a leading center of opposition to the government. apnews.com/video/ict-bu...

ICT building at Tehran's Sharif University of Technology reduced to rubble after more US-Israeli strikes

An airstrike hit Monday an information and communication technology building at Tehran's Sharif University of Technology, a professor there said.

apnews.com

Some science cuts in Trump's proposed FY27 budget ❌ NIH: -$5B, including all of NIEHS, NIMHD, FIC & NCCIH. ❌ EPA: -4.6B ❌ NSF: -3.8B ❌ NASA Science: -3.4 Billion ❌ NOAA: -1.8B, including the entire Oceanic and Atmospheric Research budget ($605M) ❌ AHRQ: All of it. -$296M, 100% And there's more.

The article makes this fairly explicit, but it's worth emphasizing that Grammarly doesn't have any clear option to request a specific reviewer (hence you can't easily check if you're included) and even a cursory attempt gets it to produce a bunch of random scholars from my or adjacent fields.

Casey Newton@caseynewton.bsky.social · 5mo ago

NEWS: Grammarly tells me it will let "experts" like me opt out of having their names used against their will and for no compensation as part of its "expert review" feature www.platformer.news/grammarly-ex...

Well, there it is.

The Seattle Times@seattletimes-rss.bsky.social · 5mo ago

White House releases AI policy framework for Congress, with six guiding principles

"This firm’s special treatment is a stark example of the way that the second Trump administration has used taxpayer money to benefit people close to the president or his top officials." www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/u...

Firm That Planned Trump’s Jan. 6 Rally Received No-Bid Contracts

nytimes.com

Trump's DOJ this month quietly backed Alexander Smirnov's bid to withdraw his guilty plea & wipe out his sentence. Smirnov had admitted lying to the @FBI about Burisma's owner arranging to pay $5m in bribes to both Joe & Hunter Biden. 👀 @davidcorn.bsky.social catch:

SCOOP: Trump’s DOJ Is Helping a Convicted FBI Informant Tied to Russian Intelligence

link.motherjones.com

The State Department is considering withholding lifesaving assistance to people with HIV in Zambia as a negotiating tactic to force the government of the southern African country to sign a deal giving the United States more access to the country’s critical minerals. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/16/h...

No H.I.V. Aid Without More Access to Minerals: U.S. Ponders ‘Sticks’ Against Zambia

nytimes.com

I was impersonated by Grammarly as well. Besides the lack of consent, a big problem is that the LLMs do a highly plausible impersonation of my views for anything not specific to me but miss exactly where my views differ from many AI experts or critics. So worse than useless. Actively misleading.

Erin Wertz@erin-wertz.bsky.social · 5mo ago

The article makes this fairly explicit, but it's worth emphasizing that Grammarly doesn't have any clear option to request a specific reviewer (hence you can't easily check if you're included) and even a cursory attempt gets it to produce a bunch of random scholars from my or adjacent fields.

PSA: One consequence of AI language models is that you should check your spam folder regularly. LLMs can generate targeted/tailored outputs at scale, resulting in a growing overlap between spam and email meant for you. Filters are failing: more spam in your inbox AND more of your mail in spam.

When a federal judge (finally) put ICE officers under oath, they admitted that they are given daily detention quotas and rely heavily on a Palantir-supplied AI tool to select targets, without warrants and without enough evidence to obtain one. They simply go into neighborhoods and round people up.

ICE agents reveal daily arrest quotas and surveillance app in rare court testimony

Under oath, officers said they were told to make eight arrests a day and given special tech to help choose ‘targets’

theguardian.com