iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Blake Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Interested in doing a #phd about #vtubers? Then boy do I have the PhD fellowship for you. Join my @erc.europa.eu funded project on the creator economy, based in lovely Aarhus, Denmark. Link to the job description below, deadline 1 November.

collage image with Uncle Sam in front of a collection of vtubers with the text “I want you for a PhD fellowship on vtubers”

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Blake Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

Not my best work, but it’s been a long day of teaching

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Blake Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

It’s giving Mr. Koolaid, but what can you do?

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Blake Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

Week 41 is Zubat. Perfect for Spooky Season.

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Blake Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

Decided this should be one thread so reposting 😅

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Blake Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

In my attempt to learn the “weeks” of the year and keep my drawing skills from getting too rusty, I’ve decided to match week numbers with Pokédex numbers and decorate my office white board. Please enjoy #35

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Blake Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

We find significant commonalities in the priorities of 12 diverse livestreaming and adult webcamming platforms, supporting the claim of growing consensus around industry standards within Trust & Safety, even among alternative and adult platforms that are typically not part of public discussions.

A heatmap of the policy priorities of the following platforms: YouTube, Twitch, AfreecaTV, Kick, Rumble, DLive, Chaturbate, MyFreeCams, BongaCAMS, Stripchat, Streamate, and LiveJasmin, using the following policy categories: Violent & Criminal Behavior, Regulated Goods & Services, Offensive & Objectionable Content, User Safety, Scaled Abused, Deceptive & Fradulent Behavior, Community-specific Rules, and Other.

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Blake Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Accidentally found a data center wandering around for #ICA25 saw the beautiful exterior lights on a seeming empty building and had to know more

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Blake Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

Last but not least, I'll present aspirational platform governance and the work that talk about platform bias does (with side discussions of reaction videos, gamer culture, racism, and Slashdot's meta-moderation) from @reynoldscj.bsky.social Yehonatan Kuperberg and @omerrothenstein.bsky.social

Opening slide for "Aspirational platform governance: How creators legitimize content moderation through accusations of bias"

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Blake Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

I'll present parasocial media, co-authored with @landrous.bsky.social, and talk about the "idols you can meet" media format and the infrastructuring of intimate yet asymmetrical relationships for a @icaptc.bsky.social panel (full paper: doi.org/10.1177/2976... out in @platformsnsociety.bsky.social)

Title slide for "parasocial media: the mass production of intimacy on a chinese pop idol mobile application"

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Blake Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

@rscarlets.bsky.social will present the paper on policy specifications in AI governance on behalf of a team with @reynoldscj.bsky.social Vasilisa Kuznetsova @ckatzenbach.bsky.social + me in an excellent panel on platform governance from @ica-clp.bsky.social

Opening slide for "The devil is in the details: specificaitons of governing principles in private & public goernance of AI"

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Blake Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

I'll present Legal Lore, co-authored with @reynoldscj.bsky.social @bondykaye.bsky.social @landrous.bsky.social, at the pre-conference and make the case for what we can learn about law and the use of takedown tools from Wikitubia data

Title slide for "Legal lore: The cultural transformation of copyright law and policy on YouTube"

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Blake Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

In Boston (for the first time) to present some new research with Nik John and @omerrothenstein.bsky.social on Bluesky, #contentmoderation, and the cultural take up of community tools for curation and moderation (also for the first time) ✨

Title slide for presentation on the marketplace of algorithms: the promise and practice of middle-level platform governance

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Blake Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

PS - for the digital culture folks, we focus on YouTube react videos as a mechanism of informal organizing that has established cultural conventions despite little technological support. Please enjoy this figure from the paper that we had a lot of fun putting together:

A collage of 12 screenshots from YouTube videos featuring different creators reacting to CoryxKenshin's original video.

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Blake Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

What do creators do when they feel that social media platforms aren’t treating them fairly? Our study of a controversy about racism and bias on YouTube, out now #openaccess in @policyr.bsky.social, offers a new answer: they participate in aspirational platform governance doi.org/10.14763/202...

Infographic promoting the key concept from the paper. Text reads: "Aspirational platform governance: Public expression of the desire to influence content moderation policies and practices without established channels or guarantees of success. (Hallinan, Reynolds, Kuperberg, & Rothenstein 2025)" along with a QR code that contains a link to the article: https://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/aspirational-platform-governance

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Blake Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

It has been a privilege to get to think with the #DigitalValues crew since 2019. The theoretical framework we present here is a proper cumulation of our work, and relevant to anyone else interested in values, social media, and global communication. PS I am very proud of the figure’s aesthetics 👇

Triangle figure of general value orientations (do well, do good, feel good) and rectangle figure of communicative value orientations (inform, express, influence, bond)

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Blake Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

Your favorite [✨manifesting✨] academic duo @reynoldscj.bsky.social + I will talk about the role of creators, degenerates, and provocateurs [not mutually exclusive] in platform governance tomorrow for the behind-the-scenes series from @pgmt.bsky.social 3-4 pm CET Register here: tinyurl.com/3v45nxr3

Title slide announcing the talk "Malcontents as method: How bad actors offer an alternative vision of good governance on social media" from Blake Hallinan and CJ Reynolds.

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Blake Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

!!Attention!! people who care about platforms, monetization, parasocial relationships, and/or idols: the exceptionally talented MA student @landrous.bsky.social and I have a paper for you, #openaccess in the fresh new journal Platforms & Society theorizing parasocial media doi.org/10.1177/2976...

Text reads: "Parasocial media: platforms that feature 1) asymmetrical relationships between different classes of users, 2) tiered access to content and/or communication, and 3) tools to directly monetize relationships."

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Blake Hallinan @blakeplease.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

📢Q. How do creators challenge restrictive copyright enforcement? A. Platform callouts. Our new #openaccess article in @PolicyR assesses the benefits and limitations of creator-driven governance: policyreview.info/articles/analy… with @reynoldscj.bsky.social and Omer Rothenstein

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