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Becca Lewis

@beccalew.bsky.social
27K followers 982 following 309 posts

Assistant professor of media studies @MIT. Cultural and political histories of Silicon Valley and the internet.

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Becca Lewis @beccalew.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
no one can convince me hollywood has ever made a better movie than you've got mail
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Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Send this to every university President in the country.
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dr. thrasher, an american writer in ex(archia)(xile) @thrasherxy.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The ACLU and Amnesty International have published an exhaustive, 322 page repoter about student (and faculty) speech being under attack around the world. www.aclu.org/publications...
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Catherine D'Ignazio (she/her/ella) @kanarinka.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
MIT spent $3 million on 500 AI-capable surveillance cameras while laying people off, shutting down libraries, and canceling journal subscriptions. In this article, 4 faculty & I discuss our new arts initiative to celebrate surveillance and repression on college campuses: fnl.mit.edu/how-we-learn...
fnl.mit.edu
How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Campus Surveillance – MIT Faculty Newsletter
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American Prestige @amprestigepod.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Catch all of our past livestreams. Recent guests include Will Sommer (@willsommer.bsky.social ), Jasper Nathaniel, Luke Savage (@lukewsavage.bsky.social ), and Becca Lewis (@beccalew.bsky.social ): youtube.com/playlist?lis...
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Kate Sim @katejsim.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Timely paper from @tomasgna.bsky.social on how T&S workers are reconfiguring online harm "into corporate risks" as the theater of AI safety/xrisk prevails and the project of T&S erodes...
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Tomás G. @tomasgna.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
i have a new paper out in Social Media+Society about Trust & Safety specialists! 📝 i argue that they construct online harms by presenting themselves as advocates for users, creating risks, and publicizing this work. my goal was to make sense of the inherent instability of T&S work...
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Nick Carnes @carnes.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Top notch satire about absolutely bananas surveillance of MIT faculty, staff, and students.
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Mike Rugnetta @mikerugnetta.com · 22/09/2026
a bedazzled security camera
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Katherine Thorne @sparklemarkers.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Worth a read. No, really.
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Kevin Riggle @kevinr.free-dissociation.com · 22/09/2026
"The goal of the [...] initiative is to beautify every single AI-capable camera on our campus as an indicator of our support and love for the campus surveillance now bestowed upon us from up high. To beautify the cameras, we are sticking luxurious gems of many colors on each and every camera."
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Yan Basque @yanbasque.com · 22/09/2026
Brilliant
For this reason, we are writing to let the community know about our new arts initiative: The Initiative to Beautify the Al-capable Surveillance Benevolently Installed by our Administrator Overseers and the MIT Corporation In Collaboration with Big Brother Tech Companies.
For a handy acronym, you can refer to our project as the
IBAISBIAOMITCORPICBBTC initiative.
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Becca Lewis @beccalew.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
👀👀👀👀 fnl.mit.edu/how-we-learn...
fnl.mit.edu
How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Campus Surveillance – MIT Faculty Newsletter
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Becca Lewis @beccalew.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Question for academics: do people find it's usually worth it to pay for open access to their articles? I hate the idea of keeping things closed behind paywalls, but I also hate the idea of paying for my own labor
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Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) @iwriteok.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
It's vastly more comforting to believe in an imminent robot apocalypse than the truth: the things that will destroy us are extensions of the unsexy but obvious problems all around us. We are not doomed in one grand way, but a thousand petty small ways.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 18/09/2026
i am genuinely bewildered by people who say that the rise of white nationalism in the republican party is a response to the "woke left." like, did the woke left cause pat buchanan's 1992 presidential campaign? is the woke left why steve king had a long career in congress?
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Better Things Are Possible @internethippo.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
"The president is a stupid asshole" quickly became a trite observation but that's still the analysis that most accurately and succinctly explains almost everything that happens
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Becca Lewis @beccalew.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
“Dialectic of enlightenment” hits different in the age of AI
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
"In 2022, Wiley removed over 1,300 ebooks from academic library collections; [they said] perpetual access is not an option for subscribed content. In 2025, Clarivate,... announced they would stop offering libraries perpetual access licenses for ebooks and primary-source digital collections."
arl.org
Consumers Are Worried About the Loss of Physical Media Ownership. Libraries Are Leading the Conversation. — Association of Research Libraries
Sally Sax is head, Collection Strategy and Partnerships, MacOdrum Library, Carleton University. In a recent Atlantic Monthly article about Sony’s plan to end physical sales of PlayStation console game...
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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
To put a finer point on it: he is right.
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Becca Lewis @beccalew.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Truffaut has the quote about how there’s no such thing as an anti-war film, and it’s becoming abundantly clear that there’s no such thing as an anti-Silicon Valley film either
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Becca Lewis @beccalew.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Who wants to place bets on which race scientist will win this $1,000,000 prize? www.thecarobtrust.org/the-prize
Mission

The Carob Trust Prize honors academics who pursue bold ideas that challenge prevailing orthodoxies—whether political, intellectual, or methodological—and hold the potential to reshape knowledge, policy, or society. The Prize supports scholars whose work is original, rigorous, impactful, and courageous—even when it is unpopular. Selection Criteria
Intellectual Independence

A proven commitment to following logic and evidence wherever they lead, regardless of academic or political pressure.
Non-Conformist Ideas

Originality and boldness of research agenda. Willingness to ask questions that others avoid—whether uncomfortable, underfunded, or unfashionable.
Impact and Vindication

Work of excellent quality that has shifted academic debate, public discourse, or policy. Evidence that ideas criticized at the time have proven—through data, replication, or influence—to possess enduring value.
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Molly Crabapple @mollycrabapple.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
ICE got permission to cut open a Cuban hunger striker’s stomach and insert a gastric tube to make him easier to forcefeed Nuremberg trials are too merciful for these monsters www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
ICE given permission to force-feed Cuban hunger striker with gastric tube
Exclusive: court orders seen by Guardian show agency given approval to fit Texas detainee with tube without his consent
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Becca Lewis @beccalew.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
only men are allowed to leave complicated legacies
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Becca Lewis @beccalew.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
A great read from @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social siliconprairies.substack.com/p/openais-ro...
siliconprairies.substack.com
OpenAI's Rogue Agents Are a Normal Accident
Lessons from the 1988 Morris Worm
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Catherine D'Ignazio (she/her/ella) @kanarinka.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Join our open, free learning community 📣 Technofascism, Feminism and Democracy 📣 to explore: the rise of global authoritarianism; Big Tech, AI, & the billionaire class; how feminist & grassroots movements are proposing alternative democratic futures. technofascism.dataplusfeminism.mit.edu
Image depicts a bundle of cables (referencing the origin of the word "fasces" which means bundle in Italian) along with the head of an ax protruding from them. The text reads Technofascism, Feminism, Democracy and a smaller text invites you to join the open learning community with a QR code.
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Becca Lewis @beccalew.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Most predictable heritage move possible!!!!!
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Rachel Cohen Booth @rcobooth.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
this new Heritage Foundation report is much broader than "protect women's sports". It argues Title IX imposed a male model of competition on women, encouraged us to become dominant and aggressive, and pulled us away from traditional femininity and motherhood
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Luke O'Neil @lukeoneil47.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
"Though immigrants and people of color are often scapegoated for Revere’s changing character, the forces actually reshaping the neighborhood are economic. It’s luxury housing, rising rents, and a new class of people wealthy enough to live in Revere without participating in it."
welcometohellworld.com
A requiem for a Revere Beach dive bar
Change hovers on the horizon
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rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
i’d like to report a mass murder
Perhaps it has been his guilty conscience regarding his position at MIT along with a hubristic overestimation of his own capacity for individually grasping the essence of any global matter that led Chomsky to saddle himself with the task of producing counter-propaganda rather than searching for truth; perhaps it was the idea of himself as an American statesman trying to advise policy rather than an international organizer that led him to prioritize a friendship with someone who could provide access to figures like Ehud Barak and Steve Bannon over consideration for his victims. Whatever the case, Chomsky's lasting legacy will be the impressive feat of having combined the worst aspects of just about every leftist and progressive tendency: anarchists' lack of economic theory and class analysis, Marxist-Leninists' defense of state atrocities and insistence on viewing politics as a global chessboard, and liberals' elitist disdain for the masses' ability to be trusted with interpreting information.
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hannah gais @hannahgais.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Hampshire College started with a grand promise: to serve as "a vehicle for the realization of self in society." This fall, the school will close its doors. I talked to some of its founders, faculty, students, administrators, and board members about what its loss means thebaffler.com/latest/class...
thebaffler.com
Class Dismissed | Hannah Gais
Private liberal arts schools were never going to kickstart the revolution. But the closure of Hampshire College further narrows the political imaginary.
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Dr Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
This is a body blow to the AHA and it was entirely avoidable. People can easily check my positionality in saying this but hiring a major firm to battle your own members into silence is a pyrrhic victory at best. At worst it is a mortal wound to the association.
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Dave Infante @dinfontay.com · 25/08/2026
After nearly half a decade of organizing ~700 Starbucks locations, with the mega-chain still dragging its feet on a first union contract, it's come to this: as of this morning, Starbucks Workers United is calling for a national consumer boycott.
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Starbucks Workers United @sbworkersunited.org · 25/08/2026
🚨BREAKING: Our union of over 12,000 baristas are officially calling for a Starbucks boycott. Read this statement penned by Starbucks workers on why a boycott from ALL customers, allies, and organizations is necessary to fight back against corporate greed:
BOYCOTT STARBUCKS is written inside a zig-zaggy speech bubble against crumbled paper. Beside it are the Starbucks Workers United logo and an image of a coffee cup being poured out.We, the 12,000 and growing members of Starbucks Workers United, call on everyone who stands with working people to boycott Starbucks until they finalize a contract with union baristas and stop union-busting.
What we’re fighting for is simple: a minimum $17/hr wage, enough hours to live on, better staffing in our stores, and basic workplace protections. Every year, our living costs rise but our wages don’t keep up – a growing pressure many American workers are feeling as corporate greed accelerates unchecked in our country. 
Starbucks is banking on customers' blind loyalty to the integrity and values this company once stood for in order to keep squeezing them for profits. At a time when working-class people across the country are struggling in a challenging economy, it is no longer possible to be both a Starbucks customer and in support of workers; choosing to spend money at Starbucks is choosing a law breaking corporation over the baristas who make your coffee everyday exactly as you ask for it.
Starbucks has violated U.S. labor law more than any other company in modern history–the NLRB and its judges have found that Starbucks committed hundreds of labor violations and there are currently more than 550 unresolved unfair labor practice charges still pending against the company. Instead of finalizing a fair and reasonable union contract, Starbucks has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of care for the workers who fuel the company’s profits by wasting millions of dollars on AI and technology that doesn’t work, launching countless gimmicky drinks designed to distract from real problems, and inventing pointless policies that do nothing but make our jobs harder. 
This ongoing, irrational behavior by Starbucks and its refusal to settle a fair union contract with workers leaves us with no other choice than to call for a boycott. We know when working people stand up together, we win. 
No Contract? No Coffee.
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Becca Lewis @beccalew.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
www.nytimes.com/2026/08/23/b...
nytimes.com
How Big Tech Captured American Schools (Gift Article)
Companies like Google and Microsoft have used their money, their might and their massive reach to influence nearly every step of the education supply chain.
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Alex Shephard @alexshephard.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
this is refreshingly direct about the bargain many Never Trumpers thought they were making, which is that they would simply take over the Democratic Party and that everyone else would shut up and be grateful www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
theatlantic.com
The ‘Resistance’ Is Over
The insurgent left cares more about its own factional agenda than the president’s threats to democracy.
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KEW @kidadaewilliams.com · 20/08/2026
A researcher at the Old State House Museum in Little Rock discovered slave auctions had once taken place on museum grounds. Her bosses told her to stay silent. arktimes.com/arkansas-blo...
arktimes.com
A researcher at the Old State House discovered slave auctions had once taken place on museum grounds. Her bosses told her to stay silent. - Arkansas Times
“They immediately said, ‘Do not mention this to anyone.’ They said to keep researching, but don’t say anything about it because they might be watching,“ researcher Tessa Wahlquist said. “They” were me...
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
New from 404 Media: we solved which AI company is buying massive shipments of rare books, scanning and destroying them to train AI. We put an Apple AirTag in a rare book, followed it. It ended up at an Amazon facility. Its logo is a dinosaur ripping through a book www.404media.co/we-tracked-a...
404media.co
We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility
We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
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John Aerni-Flessner @lesothojohn.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
This is an absolute travesty. Northwestern has, probably, the 2nd best library collection for African History/Studies in the USA (behind Yale and ahead of MSU, UCLA, etc). A self-inflicted wound that is absolutely, 100% unnecessary given the massive wealth of Northwestern--north of $15 billion.
thepurplewire.beehiiv.com
SCOOP: Northwestern moves to close Program of African Studies
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Becca Lewis @beccalew.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Always listen to @letsgomathias.bsky.social
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Jared Holt @jaredlholt.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
The "centrist" think tank Third Way is looking to pay someone between $140,000 and $150,000 to spend their days trying to dig up dirt on DSA members. They're trying to sell this gig as "anti-extremism" work, which I find completely disgusting.
from job listing:

As the Director of Anti-Extremism, a typical day might include…

Assembling and updating a database of the DSA’s most extreme ideas and statements and a repository of voting records, affiliations, and issue positions to make available to allies and partners;
Leading public opinion research to identify and test the contrasts that move base voters away from these extreme candidates;
Overseeing the development of memos, talking points, rapid response materials, and other products that make the case against these extreme forces in American politics;
Promoting and marketing our research and materials to ensure they reach decisionmakers quickly, repeatedly, and at scale through a coordinated distribution infrastructure;
Recruiting and arming a group of young, diverse spokespeople to fight the DSA from a center-left perspective and assembling a broad coalition of organizational partners to make the case against extremism;
Running an earned media program to create a drumbeat of our message in op-eds, television appearances, podcasts, and traditional and digital media engagement.
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Becca Lewis @beccalew.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
It’s so irritating when a reactionary grifter goes fishing for attention and then gets the attention they were looking for. We have it in our power not to take the bait!!!!
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 09/08/2026
"But there is no honour for the humanities in regaining their standing through the attention of AI companies, if they engage only on the technology industry’s terms. In that case, they will have become important in exactly the wrong way." www.ft.com/content/bdb3...
ft.com
Why this philosopher turned down Anthropic
The AI industry is courting the humanities — but it is asking the wrong questions
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Becca Lewis @beccalew.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Check out my first-ever livestream, a conversation with @amprestigepod.bsky.social about the surveillance firm Flock Safety and how it fits into the broader history and dynamics of Silicon Valley m.youtube.com/watch?v=cO6d...
m.youtube.com
American Prestige Free World Livestream 8/6/26
YouTube video by American Prestige
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American Prestige @amprestigepod.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Don't forget the weekly LIVESTREAM Tomorrow at 8 pm ET Our guest is Becca Lewis (@beccalew.bsky.social), historian of Silicon Valley We'll be talking about FLOCK 📷 Watch on YouTube, Instagram, or Twitch📸 linktr.ee/americanpres...
linktr.ee
americanprestigepod Official: TikTok, Instagram, X, Twitch | Linktree
A podcast about the United States and all the friends it's made along the way.
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Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 02/08/2026
We found the Flock cameras cops used to spy on women
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 30/07/2026
“Harvard paid McKinsey & Company at least $250,000 to consult on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ staff restructuring efforts, according to internal documents obtained by The Crimson.” www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
thecrimson.com
Harvard Paid McKinsey $250,000 For FAS Consultation, Internal Documents Show | News | The Harvard Crimson
Harvard paid McKinsey & Company at least $250,000 to consult on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ staff restructuring efforts, according to internal documents obtained by The Crimson.
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Becca Lewis @beccalew.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
It’s Erving goffman’s world, we’re all just presenting versions of ourselves in it
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johnedwinmason @johnedwinmason.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Trump's senseless war of choice is having devastating effects on everyday people all over the world. apnews.com/article/nige...
apnews.com
Nigerian children pay the price for the Iran war as malnutrition and poverty surge
Health workers in northern Nigeria say more children are relapsing into malnutrition and cite knock-on effects from the war in the Middle East.
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