What I'm Reading - 1/26/25

This is my last weekend on the Eastern Shore for a bit. I haven’t taken good care of myself lately, as January has been quite busy. But last night, I went to bed at 9:30 pm and woke up at 6:45 am to this parade of geese in front of the dock with a beautiful sunrise.

Next weekend, I head to France for my two-week writing retreat at

Kate Hill

’s Relais de Camont. I’m both excited and nervous about it as I’ve never taken this much time for myself, let alone this much time, to focus on something like writing a book.

I’ll be video blogging it on my Instagram and TikTok accounts and writing about it here if you want to follow along.

Finally, some humor as we close out the longest month I can remember since April 2020. I hope everyone is hanging in there.

Have a great Sunday!

What I’m Reading

Top Trends

1. Six-Chart Sunday (#53) – Activism Ahead?

2. Edelman: 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer

3. LTK: 2025 Creator Marketing Trends Report: Power of Creators in Consumer Trust and Shaping Trends

AI Developments

1. Patrick Ruffini The Intersection: AI's political bias

2. Manhattan Institute: Measuring Political Preferences in AI Systems: An Integrative Approach

3. Rest of World: The global struggle over how to regulate AI

4. The New York Times: Trump Plans to Announce $100 Billion A.I. Initiative

5. NFX: The Five Stages of AI Agent Evolution

6. Axios: Trump signs AI and tech executive orders

Stories About Specific Countries

1. Tech Crunch: The EU wants to talk to US tech companies ahead of Germany's upcoming election

2. European Commission: Code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online

3. Bloomberg: Davos 2025: Should India PM Modi Follow Trump and Milei in Deregulation?

4. Bloomberg: South Sudan Shuts Social Media After Riots Over Violence in Neighbor Sudan

5. Devex: Exclusive: State Department issues stop-work order on US aid

6. Financial Times: Marco Rubio demands immediate halt to virtually all US foreign aid

Political & Social Commentary

1. Washington Post: Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Trump pivot

2. The Washington Post: Trump signs order to end ‘government censorship’ of social media

3. The New York Times: Opinion | I Was an Undocumented Immigrant. I Beg You to See the Nuance in Our Stories.

4. Congressman Mike Flood: Rep. Flood & Sen. Wyden to Streaming Services: It’s Time to Carry C-SPAN & Support Public Access to Congress

5. Snopes.com: Meta Didn't Force Facebook Users To Follow Trump and Vance. Here's Why It Might Seem That Way

6. Eater DC: Exclusive: Elon Musk May Be the Latest Leader of D.C.’s Line Hotel

7. TechCrunch: Bluesky saw 17x increase in moderation reports in 2024 after rapid growth

8. Pew Research Report: A closer look at Americans’ experiences with news on TikTok

9. The Intersection by Patrick Ruffini: Did the Realignment reach downballot?

10. The Washington Post: ‘The vibes were off’: How half a day without TikTok changed everything

11. Bloomberg: The Second Trump Presidency, Brought to You by YouTubers

12. The New York Times: Opinion | Trump Barely Won the Popular Vote. Why Doesn’t It Feel That Way?

13. The Verge: Meta’s MAGA heel turn is about much more than Trump

Miscellaneous Insights & Reports

1. Tina Brown on intellectual serendipity, the Elon Musk era and why "magazines are mostly done"

2. The Wall Street Journal: The Playlist Power Broker Who Makes or Breaks New Artists

3. The Wall Street Journal: Substack Advertising Is Turning Writers Into Part-Time Sales Reps

4. Emi Kolawole: How to read in The Slop Era

Company Announcements

1. Meta: Ads in Threads: Extend Your Campaigns to a Rapidly Growing Community

2. National Conference on Citizenship: ​Celebrating the Release of Vermont's First-Ever Civic Health Index

3. Google Public Policy: Global AI Optimism Increases as Usage Grows