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Aaron Ackerley

@aaronackerley.bsky.social
243 followers 440 following 25 posts

Modern British History. Press and Media. Empire. Economics. Knowledge and Power. Associate Professor in History, University of Stavanger www.uis.no/nb/profile/aaron-matthew…

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Reposted by Aaron Ackerley
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 14h
AI is now the biggest investment in all of US history as a percentage of GDP. Datacenter construction is up, all other construction is down. "AI Is Squeezing Out the Rest of the Stock Market," reported WSJ 2 days ago. We basically bet the whole economy on the most optimistic visions panning out.
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Elizabeth DeLoria, Pope of Chili-Town @yourdadloves.me · 03/10/2026
A two panel meme of the Simpsons. The top panel has kirk van houten gesturing to a race care bed. The text reads "im an AI guy. How many local models do YOU run?" The bottom panel is homer with a pope hat photoshopped onto his head. The bottom text reads "I run the catholic church."
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Steve Peers @stevepeers.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Not beating the genocide allegations
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Karen Attiah @karenattiah.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Today, 8 years ago, my friend, Saudi Journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered.
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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The Conservative party Shadow Culture Secretary to speak at conference tomorrow about how to "defend press freedom", whilst her own party bans journalists whose coverage they don't like
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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Was just on LBC with @mrjamesob.bsky.social to discuss Kemi Badenoch's banning of @bylinetimes.bsky.social from attending Conservative conference after calling such bans by Reform "authoritarian" and an assault on free speech bylinetimes.com/2026/09/30/k...
bylinetimes.com
Kemi Badenoch's Conservatives Block Byline Times From Conference After Condemning Reform for Journalist Ban
The ban comes just weeks after the Conservative leader called Reform's barring of critical journalists from their conference an "authoritarian" attack on the free press
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Josiah Mortimer @josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
New GB News accounts are out. Here are their losses to date. Or "spent political donations" if you prefer
Line chart titled 'GB News has lost £142m to date', showing cumulative losses in pounds rising steadily from around £3m in 2020/1 to £142m by 2025. The red line climbs most steeply between 2021/2 and 2023/4, reaching roughly £110m, then flattens as growth slows towards £142m. A note states the latest figures cover the seven-month period to 31 December 2025. Chart by Press Gazette, source: Companies House
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Dustin A. Chacón @lingdustin.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I've heard people make claims that AI would lead to a new Renaissance, but I didn't imagine it'd happen like this:
Screenshot of a Tweet from Pope Leo XIV. It reads: 

"In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgen to distinguish human art from what machines produce. There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity. For this reason, the Church wishes to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to safeguard our humanity."
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De Balie @debalie.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
How does dirty money shape our world? This Thursday at De Balie, @oliverbullough.bsky.social and Thomas Bollen (@ftm.nl) expose the global system of money laundering. An evening about shell companies, tax havens, crypto, empty high-end apartments and more. Tickets & info: debalie.nl/programma/th...
debalie.nl
The Dark Economy: How Dirty Money Shapes the World
Together with investigative journalists Oliver Bullough and Thomas Bollen we dive into the shadow world money laundering. A world of shell companies, tax havens, crypto and empty high-end apartments.
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Mic Wright @brokenbottleboy.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
NEW | Another day, another columnist selectively quoting Orwell… ALLISON PEARSON’S ACTION MAN FETISH A deranged defence of the SAS and a dismissal of war crimes accusations is exactly what we expect from one of the Telegraph’s worst. brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/allison-pe...
brokenbottleboy.substack.com
Allison Pearson’s Action Man fetish
A deranged and bloodthirsty defence of the SAS and a dismissal of war crimes accusations is exactly what we can expect from one of the Telegraph’s worst.
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Richard Littler @richardlittler.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Would that be Matt Brittin, former Google executive tech-bro, who has no broadcast experience?
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Richard Littler @richardlittler.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The BBC's new director general's brain is smaller on the inside.
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Ed Granter @edgranter.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Do you know how low that is for a population our size?
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Kate Mackenzie @katemac.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Remember when we thought investors might mobilize in ways sufficient to protect the world from climate change
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
'The Westminster government’s contribution to funding domestic undergraduates studying in England fell in real terms from £8.9 billion in 2012-13 to just £3.3bn in 2024-25, a drop of more than 60 per cent, an analysis has found.'
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David Hendy @davidhendy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Today would have been the 80th birthday of the Third Programme - BBC Radio 3’s remarkable predecessor. My latest for the BBC marks the occasion with a dip into the programme archives, unearthing some forgotten gems from the Third’s early years…
bbc.co.uk
The Third at 80 – a brief history of the unexpected
Weird and wonderful highlights from the early years of BBC Radio 3’s celebrated forerunner The Third Programme
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Byline Times @bylinetimes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
📚 GEOPOLITICS (Edition 90) The different stories of the Cambridge academics Jason Arday and James Orr reveal the wider cultural and ideological forces at work around hierarchies and structural… Read the full piece below.
subscribe.bylinetimes.com
The different stories of the Cambridge academics Jason Arday and James Orr reveal the wider cultural and ideological forces at work around hierarchies and structural power. Hardeep Matharu reports
The different stories of the Cambridge academics Jason Arday and James Orr reveal the wider cultural and ideological forces at work around hierarchies and structural power. Hardeep Matharu reports
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Aaron Ackerley @aaronackerley.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
You were meant to use the gourmetmental ones!
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Larry Glickman @larryglickman.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Elite universities mea culpas about the “loss of trust” in higher education so often fail to consider the force of the longterm propagandistic attack on universities, given extensive play in conservative media, that long preceded Trump, but which he has massively accelerated.
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Larry Glickman @larryglickman.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The NY Times has repeatedly used the phrase “to heel” in reference to Trump’s crackdown on universities, implicitly clarifying that Trump goal is to establish dominance. And what exactly constitutes this “woke” ideology in higher education?
During the meeting, Mr. Trump repeatedly complained about his administration’s failure to bring Harvard University in particular to heel. The administration has been unable to hammer out a deal with the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, a central plank of his broader push against “woke” ideology in higher education.
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Josiah Mortimer @josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
🔴 Rupert Murdoch Flew Kemi Badenoch and Her Deputy to Mediterranean for Summer Trips Worth £12,000 The Conservative leader and Alex Burghart MP held “off-site meetings” with the billionaire media mogul in August bylinetimes.com/2026/09/25/r...
bylinetimes.com
Rupert Murdoch Flew Kemi Badenoch and Her Deputy to Mediterranean for Summer Trips Worth £12,000
The Conservative leader and Alex Burghart MP held "off-site meetings" with the billionaire media mogul in August
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Nick Garland @npjgarland.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Kind of grimly fascinating as always, coming from the former director of strategy to a Labour PM. There just isn't a future for a centre-left politics that is this hostile to pretty basic progressive values.
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
🔴 BREAKING: BP, Uber, Amazon and more paying Tony Blair's think tank $25,000 for “networking” opportunities with politicians and policy makers at party conferences Experts say "looks and smells like cash for access" Full story on Democracy for Sale democracyforsale.substack.com/p/breaking-t...
democracyforsale.substack.com
BREAKING: Tony Blair Institute’s $25,000 corporate network “smells like cash for access”
Exclusive documents show Tony Blair's think tank offers corporate members such as BP and Uber "networking" at party conferences and "a stronger voice" in policy debates.
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Roosevelt Institute @rooseveltinstitute.org · 24/09/2026
This is where the logic of media consolidation inevitably leads: fewer companies, fewer owners, and more of what we see and hear decided by a few billionaires. Decades of treating media as a market, rather than democratic infrastructure, created the conditions for this oligarchic system.
rooseveltinstitute.org
The Political Economy of the US Media System: Excavating the Roots of the Present Crisis - Roosevelt Institute
Bilal Baydoun, Shahrzad Shams, and Victor Pickard trace the roots of the US media crisis to decades of deregulation and commercial capture, outlining how consolidation, news deserts, and platform domi...
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Cas Mudde @casmudde.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Indeed. But Watson’s move is much less problematic than what he and other Labour leaders have done for Palentir when in power. This is just the logical next step.
theguardian.com
Tom Watson’s move to Palantir is the latest sign of how far the rot has spread in UK politics | Clive Lewis
When a former Labour deputy leader joins a firm built on surveillance and military targeting, it deepens public cynicism – and democracy depends on trust, says Labour MP Clive Lewis
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elia ayoub @ayoub.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
it's so great and normal that we're spending trillions of $ worth of money we don't have on these people
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Jon McGregor @jonmcgregor.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
tfw when you open a 5000 word chapter that a PhD student has worked really hard on and the UNIVERSITY SOFTWARE cheerily says "ooh this looks like a long document do you want me to summarise it for you?"
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Mark Follman @markfollman.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
NEWS: My new investigation uncovers the horrific ChatGPT history of the Tumbler Ridge school shooter. OpenAI’s chatbot fueled the shooter's violent fantasies and plans up to the day of the massacre. Chats about guns, timing of attacks, becoming infamous, and more. www.motherjones.com/media/2026/0...
motherjones.com
ChatGPT helped the Tumbler Ridge school shooter focus on guns, tactics, and terror, our investigation reveals
OpenAI’s chatbot fed the shooter’s violent fantasies and planning up to the massacre.
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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Raskin made a holy shit observation on MS Now this afternoon: Since taking office, Trump has made a million dollars per hour for himself. Every hour, he has made more than twice the president’s annual salary.
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Matt Ford @mford.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Ezra Klein asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about AI making kids worse at math and reading. Huang’s reply: “Does it matter?” Then he said he doesn’t know his own address or phone number. “We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/o...
So the message of this research out of China, where you were seeing a lot of kids using A.I. to help them, was that when they were using the A.I., they were getting things done faster. But it turned out that the skills they were learning were not holding, that their actual personal performance, at least in the way we traditionally measure it, was degrading.

What do you think when you hear that?

The last part — I completely agree. Try to get a kid to do long division right now. The multiplication table is starting to be forgotten. Doing square roots, my goodness. Basic math is being forgotten. Does it matter?

That’s my question for you.

Yeah. I don’t think it does. I don’t think it does.

But there must be some set of skills that matter.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe not those. We’re going to discover new ones. Just maybe not those.

There are a lot of skills that don’t matter. My first confession, I actually don’t know my address.And I ——

I don’t really believe that to be true.

It’s completely true. Janine will tell you and Lori will tell you.

One day I had to pump gas — it was a few years ago. They needed my ZIP code, and I panicked. I didn’t know my ZIP code. I don’t know my telephone number. I forget these things. I can live with it.

But let me take the other side because I don’t want to fall into a thing where, because some skills can be safely offloaded ——

Yeah.

I also can’t get anywhere without a mapping system now. Never could, frankly. But I’m a big reader. And one of the skills I really value, one of the capacities I have that I really value is an attention span formed on physical books.

You’re a big reader. I’ve read about the kind of reading you do. And there is, prior to A.I., a lot of concern and noticing among college professors and others that the way people use the internet has probably shortened attention spans.
Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.

Yeah. Well, I think that we’re going to lose some finer intellectual dexterity, but we’re going to be better systems thinkers.

Today’s engineers are far better systems thinkers than I was when I graduated from school. But I was a much better transistor thinker.

What do you mean by systems thinker?

They think of large systems. Today’s computers have trillions, hundreds of trillions of transistors in them. When I first graduated from school, the first chip I worked on had 200 transistors. I knew every one of them by name. No engineer does that today. Most engineers now work well above the transistor, well above the functionality, and they’re cobbling things together to do things.

So you need to think much more about systems and interactions of systems. So some of the lower-level knowledge is gone.
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Musa Okwonga @okwonga.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Rees-Mogg is the modern Theresa May: someone whose racial politics were so extreme that they laid the foundation for someone else even worse, and then whose dismay at what they had created was intepreted as moderation. But he's still extreme and always will be.
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Dr Jo Edge 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @hagenilda.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This University has just shut down all undergraduate Humanities degrees, including History, where we had some amazing modules on Black and African History for first years. 🤡
Email subject: Development at Herts: Support through change | Career growth | Black History Month
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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
One student, reacting to this news about AI, echoed the same terms as a senior colleague: “either there’s an honor code or there isn’t.” Just as AI blurs the lines between fact & slop, for too many students it’s bringing unnecessary confusion to that critical question.
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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I dont normally share paywalled links but if yr an academic you may have access to this @chronicle story by some sharp young reporters on an AI situation at Dartmouth. www.chronicle.com/article/dart...
chronicle.com
Dartmouth’s Provost Quietly Used AI in His Published Work. It’s Touched Off a Campus Firestorm.
The incident adds fuel to a debate at the college over its embrace of AI.
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Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
AP Stylebook warns against anthropomorphizing AI systems: “Avoid language that gives them human characteristics… Instead, explain what a system does, how well it performs, who built it and who could be affected by it.”
APStylebook @APStylebook
X.com
Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics. This is called anthropomorphizing, when we ascribe human traits, emotions or behaviors to non-human things, such as animals or inanimate objects.
Instead, explain what a system does, how well it performs, who built it and who could be affected by it.
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
To understand and counter disinformation, language skills, area studies expertise, historical knowledge and a wide range of arts, humanities & social science disciplines are requisite. SHAPE subjects are strategically vital for national interests. Is it strategic to let 'the market' shrink them?
thebritishacademy.ac.uk
Mapping SHAPE provision in UK higher education
This new project from the British Academy maps changing provision of SHAPE subjects in UK higher education institutions. It uses data to visually depict contractions and expansions in provision by a v...
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
'Security chiefs will set up a new national centre to tackle disinformation and deepfakes from hostile states such as Russia, Andy Burnham has announced, saying the government had a duty to “stem the poisonous tide” from damaging British interests.' While shrinking provision in Russian language?
theguardian.com
New UK agency will tackle ‘information warfare’ from likes of Russia, Burnham says
PM aims to ‘stem poisonous tide’ of disinformation and deepfakes with National Centre for Information Defence
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Liesbeth Corens @onslies.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
“If the crisis is caused by the funding model, why are workers only fighting its consequences?” The #UKHE permacrisis needs a national response. tribunemag.co.uk/2026/09/brit...
For years, sector employers, represented represented by the Universities & Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), had already laid the ground for such an escalation: during national negotiations, they repeatedly claimed that casualisation, workload and equality could not be resolved at the institutional level. As the financial crisis deepened, senior managers and UCEA itself went further, arguing that the underlying funding model was unlikely to change and that redundancies were therefore unavoidable. In other words, these issues could not be resolved by institutions themselves, with meaningful progress instead ultimately requiring state intervention.
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 22/09/2026
My job at the orphan crushing factory is very stressful.
ft.com
AI staff complain of mental toll over fears of threat to society
Top researchers at Aisi, OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind report burnout and stress over developing powerful AI
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John Bull @garius.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
In 1975, three men in a grotty London flat started a games company. It brought D&D to the UK, then redefined wargaming. This week on Untitled History Podcast, it's the history of Games Workshop with @jordansorcery.bsky.social. On Youtube or your pod app of choice! open.spotify.com/episode/3iSn...
open.spotify.com
Episode 24: How Games Workshop changed the world with Jordan Sorcery
The Untitled History Podcast · Episode
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Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Your regular reminder that Matthew Syed, who has his own BBC radio show, enthusiastically endorses the white supremacist Great Replacement Theory.
An opinion headline that reads "Migration is being used to enfeeble us, so it's clear what we have to do", by Matthew Syed.
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Max Colbert @mc00.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Not really surprised that Tom Watson has joined Palantir, given his previous role advising them and, as previously reported by me and @iainoverton.bsky.social in 2025, the fact that his firm, Lodestone, had them as a client in '24 bylinetimes.com/2025/04/25/p... www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
Former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson joins Palantir
Peer takes full-time position at the controversial company as it fends off pressure from both Andy Burnham’s government and Sadiq Khan
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Jeet Heer @jeetheer.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
While the media might find it fun to do another 500 hours of Piker discourse, it might be fruitful to look at the actual political record of Mike Rogers as a lying war-monger. www.thenation.com/article/poli...
thenation.com
Why Aren’t We Talking About the War-Mongering Lies of Mike Rogers?
The media's relentless focus on Hasan Piker allows the dishonest GOP hawk (and actual Michigan Senate candidate) to evade scrutiny.
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Elisabeth R. Anker @libankerdc.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
AI training is the largest theft of labor in history
washingtonpost.com
Microsoft exec called AI the ‘largest theft of labor’ in history, court records show
The quote headlined an unsealed document in the New York Times’s copyright case against Microsoft and OpenAI.
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Max Fawcett @maxfawcett.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
This is the part many Americans -- including the Bezosites at the Washington Post -- don't understand. Canadians don't see this just as a Trump thing. It's that America elected him twice, and the second time with an even bigger mandate. The problem we're addressing is America, not Trump.
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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 18/09/2026
“Scholars have groped for what even to call this dire diminishment of intellectual capacity. “Human enfeeblement” has been proposed, and alike “cognitive surrender” and even “cognitive extinction.” (You could also call it, “losing your mind.”)” - Jill Lepore www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
thecrimson.com
Artificial Education | The Harvard Crimson
Machine conversation is not free. It comes at the cost of our common life together as teachers, learners, and researchers, colleagues, mentors, and friends.
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Craig Aaron @notaaroncraig.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The idea that allowing the Saudi regime — which has murdered journalists, don’t forget — and other foreign investors to up to 100% of CBS and CNN is somehow in the “public interest” twists the term beyond recognition. But FCC’s Brendan Carr only serves Trump and Larry Ellison, not the public.
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M a r c u s 🏳️‍🌈🇧🇧 @marcusjdl.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Remember when the Guardian fired Dawn Foster for calling this guy out
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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 17/09/2026
‘According to some estimates, hyperscale AI data centres can get through twenty million litres of water a day – as much as fifty thousand people would consume for their domestic needs.’ Martin Thom on datacentres, new on the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/se...
lrb.co.uk
Martin Thom | Human Melting
Planning regulations were modified last year, with AI data centres redefined as ‘nationally significant infrastructure...
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Alona Ferber @aloner.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The response in Israel to Naza is beyond unhinged. Mobs have shown up at the house of co-director Rachel Szor's family. All over social media the directors are being branded traitors and "not Jews". There is a frenzy of incitement to violence against them online www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Netanyahu seeks to strip citizenship from Israelis as threats to NAZA film directors intensify
Israeli prime minister to pursue new laws as directors of Guardian-produced film face threats from far-right officials and activists
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