Mother Nature is playing around with us this weekend. If you look outside the window, it seems like a lovely Fall day, but step outside, and it’s in the low 80s!
On Friday, I went on a date with myself to eat dinner and browse Barnes and Noble. My fall book collection is growing quite large 😆. I didn’t buy all of these last night (just two), but I’ve got a lot of reading ahead of me. Let me know if you are reading any of these and want to discuss!
Finally, I am opening the Panic Responsibly sticker giveaway to all subscribers! I have about 35 free ones left. If you want one, put your details in this form.
Newsletter of the week
I totally forgot to do a newsletter of the week last week - oops - but I’ll do two this week to make up for it.
First up is
by . Recently, Alex announced new features, including paid subscriber benefits and enhanced coverage, including The Panel, Big Tech War Stories podcast, and a new Amazon column by Kristi Coulter. Alex is one of the pioneers of going independent as a journalist and has been a big help to me as well. I highly recommend you check him out.The second is that
has launched its own account called to help all of us stay on top of political content on the platform in the lead-up to the elections next year.Please support the curation and analysis I’m doing with this newsletter. As a paid subscriber, you make it possible for me to bring you in-depth analyses of the most pressing issues in tech and politics.
What I’m Reading
Entertainment Weekly: The Simpsons will parody Silicon Valley with new star-studded episode
DFR Lab: As Israel and Hamas go to war, the Digital Services Act faces its first major test
Wired: The Hamas Threat of Hostage Execution Videos Looms Large Over Social Media
Wall Street Journal: Inside Meta, Debate Over What’s Fair in Suppressing Comments in the Palestinian Territories
NBC News: 7 influential accounts are warping Israel-Hamas news on X, researchers find
Washington Post: Spy vs. spy: How Israelis tried to stop Russia's information war in Africa
New York Times: Silicon Valley Ditches News, Shaking an Unstable Industry
Wall Street Journal: Meta’s Threads Draws Power Users Seeking Alternative to Elon Musk’s X
Pew Internet: Americans are following the news less closely than they used to
Washington Post: The bipartisan fear that American democracy is on the brink
PRRI: Threats to American Democracy Ahead of an Unprecedented Presidential Election
Full Disclosure: Can we protect elections from artificial intelligence?
Change Research: Young Voters Media Consumption & Political Engagement
Oxford: Social media discourse of engaged partisans is toxic even when politics are irrelevant
Bloomberg: Prepare for a wave of US politicians to use AI in their campaigns
Bloomberg: Bud Light, Target Boycotts Show How Culture Wars Came to Retail After 2020
Daily Beast: Google Red-Flagged Kentucky AG's Taxpayer-Funded Ads
Bloomberg Law: AI-Made Deepfake Political Ads Targeted by Michigan Lawmakers
The Lawfare Podcast: The Crisis Facing Efforts to Counter Election Disinformation
Politico: Conservatives are increasingly knives out for the nation’s top cyber agency
Campaigns & Elections: A Test Run for AI Voiceover
New York Times: The Chief Ideologist of the Silicon Valley Elite Has Some Strange Ideas
New York Times: The Consequences of Elon Musk’s Ownership of X
CNBC: ‘Grandpa Google’: Search head testifies that young users see it as out of style
Washington Post: Millions work as content creators. In official records, they barely exist.
The Conversation: Let the community work it out: Throwback to early internet days could fix social media's crisis of legitimacy
TechCrunch: Pebble, the Twitter alternative previously known as T2, is shutting down
New York Times: India Is Devouring Its Best and Brightest
Fact Check: AI-generated video of Zambian president misleads about 2026 election plans
United Nations: AI Advisory Body
Trust Lab: The Differences Between the Online Safety Bill & the Digital Services Act
Euractive: Germany eyes new digital strategy amid global tech race
New York Times: 5 Takeaways From Argentina’s Election
Foreign Affairs: Jake Sullivan: The Sources of American Power
Council on Foreign Relations: The Importance of the Internet Governance Forum
CBC: China linked to propaganda campaign targeting Trudeau, Poilievre, says Global Affairs
Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD): Capitalizing on Crisis: Russia, China and Iran use X to Exploit Israel-Hammas Information Chaos
National Democratic Institute: Digital Responses to Crises: An Action Plan for Platforms and CSOs Confronting Online Threats
Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft (AHG) and the Alliance of Democracies Foundation (AoD): A new Democracy by Design toolkit.
At Scale Conferences: Making Threads for iOS
Meta Oversight Board: Oversight Board announces Greek 2023 Elections Campaign cases
Meta Oversight Board: Q2 2023 Transparency Report: Board’s Recommendations Lead to Key Changes in Meta’s Cross-Check Program
OpenAI: Frontier risk and preparedness
Anthropic: Collective Constitutional AI: Aligning a Language Model with Public Input
TikTok: Digital Services Act update: Bringing additional transparency to content moderation in Europe
X: X’s community-led approach: tackling inaccurate & misleading information
Please support the curation and analysis I’m doing with this newsletter. As a paid subscriber, you make it possible for me to bring you in-depth analyses of the most pressing issues in tech and politics.
Mother nature? Pretty sure that's not what happened.