iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Fabian Offert @zentralwerkstatt.org · 24/09/2026

The program for our Critical AI Studies? conference, happening Oct. 9&10 at @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social, is now online: huml.ucsb.edu/conference. Hope to see you there!

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Deep Culture @d-eepculture.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Rich Sutton warned that computational scale ultimately outperforms human expertise. Does his "bitter lesson" hold true when reproducing our own custom methods with LLMs? We find: the bitter lesson is sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter, and sometimes inapplicable. deep-culture.org/the-occasion...

deep-culture.org

The Occasional Bitter Lesson: AI Engineering and Expert Knowledge in the Digital Humanities • Deep Culture

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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

It’s not just training data. It’s what gets incentivized — that’s why LLMs often write exactly like this. This isn’t common Internet speech. It’s human response ratings — and it’s rewarding the system for the appearance of nuance. ✨⬇️

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Deep Culture @d-eepculture.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

What’s the difference between latent space, vector space, feature space, and embedding space? @louravn.bsky.social spelled it out for you in this short blog post deep-culture.org/whats-the-di...

deep-culture.org

What’s the difference between latent space, vector space, feature space, and embedding space? • Deep Culture

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4CAT @handle.invalid · 29/04/2026

🐈‍⬛🐈New 1.54 4CAT update 🐈🐈‍⬛ github.com/digitalmetho... 📽️ Show downloaded media in the Explorer. This works for media uploads and social media datasets if images/videos have been downloaded through 4CAT. ✏️ New "Upload annotations" processor that lets you add new data fields to existing datasets. (1/2)

github.com

Release v1.53 4CAT in bloom · digitalmethodsinitiative/4cat

This 4CAT updates mostly comprises updates and bug fixes for processors and data sources, as well as improvements to the Web UI (particularly the Explorer, which can now display downloaded dataset ...

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Petter Törnberg @pettertornberg.com · 23/04/2026

Social media is no longer social. Most of it is passive viewing of videos and pictures from people we've never met. But we're still studying social media like it's 2010. We've entered the post-social media era — and research needs to catch up. osf.io/preprints/so... preprint w/ Richard Rogers

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Bernhard Rieder @riederb.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

Together with Bastian August and Brogan Latil, I spent decidedly too much time trying to understand how Andrew Tate remains present on YouTube after his two channels were suspended. Full paper in New Media & Society: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

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4CAT @handle.invalid · 22/12/2025

A small 4CAT update just in time for the holidays - v1.52! 📊 Processors for regression analysis and dataset statistics 🧭 Test LLM prompts from our prompt library with the PromptCompass processor 🤖 Use Deepseek and Gemini 3 APIs with LLM processors 🐛 Many bug fixes! ➡️ github.com/digitalmetho...

github.com

Release v1.52 Winter Wonderland · digitalmethodsinitiative/4cat

This 4CAT updates mostly comprises bug fixes for processors and data sources, as well as a couple of new processors for statistical analysis of datasets and an implementation of PromptCompass as a ...

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Sal Hagen @hetsalwel.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

How to move along with the audiovisual, vibey, and AI-infused feeds of today's platforms? In this new article with @ddzeeuw.bsky.social and Tommaso Venturini, we theorize 'digital rhythmanalysis' as a potential new quali-quantitative approach to measure and 'feel' rhythms online: bit.ly/pns-dra

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Sal Hagen @hetsalwel.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

4CAT now contains everything for quite sophisticated classification pipelines with humans and (local) LLMs! I myself used it to classify what types of migration were mentioned in Dutch news articles (see www.groene.nl/artikel/onde...). See all changes below 👇

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Sal Hagen @hetsalwel.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

Voor @groene.nl onderzochten we hoe het migratiedebat de laatste jaren is gegroeid, verhard en verbreed. We analyseerden 150.000 nieuwsartikelen en 20.000 Tweede Kamer-spreekbeurten en gebruiken een (lokale!) LLM om te zien welke migratietypen de meeste aandacht kregen. Lees het artikel hieronder 👇

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Sal Hagen @hetsalwel.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

On election day, AI Overviews are still erratic, shown in ~10% of our queries. Some issue-related queries are unanswered but "which party is for defence" recommends VVD and JA21 at the top and includes outdated stances on JSF investments and the PvdA as a separate party. Nothing on NATO norms.

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Mira of Kyiv 🇺🇦 @reshetz.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

Genuinely what the fuck is going on in Albania

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Sal Hagen @hetsalwel.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

With @best.wel.moe and @nieuwsuur.nl, we studied Google's AI Overviews for political searches in the NL. We found that larger parties often benefit and that Google changed its use of AI Overviews *three times* during the run-up to the Dutch elections. Read the article here: nos.nl/nieuwsuur/ar...

nos.nl

Google zet gekleurde AI-antwoorden midden in campagnetijd aan, uit, en weer aan

GroenLinks-PvdA, D66 en de VVD worden in de antwoorden op algemene politieke vragen het vaakst genoemd. Kleinere partijen komen veel minder vaak aan bod.

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Chloe Papadopoulou @diafanokrino.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

Keywords are not neutral. With Tobias Blanke, we investigate the power of keywords as interpretive tools in our work "Keywords in Digital Humanities: A critical assessment of computational techniques for mapping security and freedom in historical debates". You can read the article now on DHQ!

dhq.digitalhumanities.org

DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly: Keywords in Digital Humanities – A critical assessment of computational techniques for mapping security and freedom in histor...

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Louis Ravn @louravn.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

Super fun to contribute to this brief interview with Terminally Online, a student-led organization on New Media at the University of Amsterdam. We spoke about my wonderful team‘s research (@d-eepculture.bsky.social), who inspires me, and some of my own work. 🔗: www.linkedin.com/pulse/interv...

linkedin.com

Interview with Louis Ravn

Louis Ravn is a PhD Candidate on Deep Culture at the University of Amsterdam, working in the fields of science and technology studies and critical data/AI studies. Moreover, he is assistant editor for...

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Jaap Kooijman @jaapkooijman.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

Dit is de omgekeerde wereld. De academische vrijheid wordt bedreigd doordat onze onderzoekers die zich uitspreken in het publieke debat over “omstreden” onderwerpen als snel het doelwit worden van online bedreigingen, met name uit extreemrechtse hoek.

nos.nl

'Nederlandse universiteiten schuwen debat met andersdenkenden'

Is er op Nederlandse universiteiten nog wel ruimte voor een open debat? "Radicale vrijheid van meningsuiting bestaat in Nederland niet."

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Dieuwertje Luitse @dluitse.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

🚨The Critical AI Seminar Series returns in 2025/2026 ✨ This year we will have four talks and are beyond excited to welcome @amoorelouise.bsky.social & @alexcampolo.bsky.social, Fabian Offert, Helene Ratner & @nannathylstrup.bsky.social and @thaophan.bsky.social ✨ Sign up: bit.ly/uvacriticala...

Critical AI seminar series

Register via https://bit.ly/uvacriticalai2526

Program and Invited Speakers:

Upcoming seminars

November 12, 5-6:30 PM (CEST): Invited talk by Louise Amoore and Alexander Campolo, ‘On reading machine learning‘

January 13, 5:30-7 PM (CEST): Invited talk by Fabian Offert on
‘Vector Media‘

March 18, 3-4:30 (CEST): Invited talk by Helene Ratner and Nanna Thylstrup on ‘Ecologies of evaluation’

May 20, 12-1:30 PM (CEST): Invited talk by Thao Phan on ‘Testing-in-the-wild’

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Sal Hagen @hetsalwel.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

The last few weeks I worked 4CAT's LLM features. We're not free from Silicon Valley APIs yet, but you have more options in terms of providers (including Mistral) and it's also possible to use local LLMs through LM Studio and Ollama. Check it out:

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Sal Hagen @hetsalwel.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

🔎New paper! Guillén Torres and I study "enrichment" on Google and Bing as a form of content moderation. Main finding: enrichment can be erratic, with components like "AI Overviews" even being banned for certain political queries like those including "trump". Pre-print: ssrn.com/abstract=528...

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Sal Hagen @hetsalwel.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Op nos.nl ging de laatste vijftien jaar even vaak over klimaatverandering als over Erik ten Hag. (2853 vs. 2766 artikelen/updates) @xrnl.bsky.social @nieuws.nos.nl

nos.nl artikelen met verwijzingen naar klimaatverandering en Ten Hag

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Sal Hagen @hetsalwel.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Tired of looking at Excel rows when investigating social media data? 4CAT's new Explorer feature is here to help!

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Sal Hagen @hetsalwel.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

yes een nieuwe kans voor Schier

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Sal Hagen @hetsalwel.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Na ons artikel uit 2021 over klimaatverslaggeving (www.groene.nl/artikel/we-h...) was het tijd voor een data-update. Gelukkig is meer aandacht voor de klimaatcrisis in de vier grootste kranten. Maar er is nog steeds een golfbeweging gaande en aandacht is de laatste maanden weer afgenomen.

Krantenartikelen per maand met verwijzingen naar klimaatverandering

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Fernando van der Vlist @fvandervlist.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

We’re hiring: Lecturer in Cultural Data & AI and Archival & Information Studies (Media Studies, @uvahumanities.bsky.social)! Join @tpoell.bsky.social, @riederb.bsky.social, myself, & other wonderful colleagues in the Critical Data & AI team. Applications due 28 May. werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies...

werkenbij.uva.nl

Vacancy — Lecturer in Cultural Data & AI and Archival & Information Studies

Would you like to teach on cutting-edge theories, methods, and questions in Cultural Data & AI and Archival & Information? Then we have the perfect challenge for you!

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Jeroen van Bergeijk @jeroenvanbergeijk.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

De afgelopen maanden werkte ik als AI-trainer om chatbots als ChatGPT nuttiger, vriendelijker en 'menselijker' te maken. Alles over mijn avonturen in deze 'droombaan' lees je in de @groene.nl van deze week. Met heerlijke illustraties van @kamagurka.bsky.social. www.groene.nl/artikel/heea...

groene.nl

Heeft het werk als trainer van AI-modellen als ChatGPT überhaupt zin?

Stel een vraag aan een chatbot en je krijgt soms wartaal als antwoord. Jeroen van Bergeijk gaat als trainer aan de slag om AI-modellen nuttiger, vriendelijker en ‘menselijker’ te maken. Hoe bevredigen...

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Onder Mediadoctoren @ondermediadoctoren.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

Waarom gaan extreem-rechts en memecultuur zo goed samen? In deze nieuwe aflevering verwonderen ons met @hetsalwel.bsky.social over 4chan ondermediadoctoren.nl/afl-202-4chan/

ondermediadoctoren.nl

Afl 202: 4chan | Onder Mediadoctoren

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Sal Hagen @hetsalwel.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

New search engine scraper tool by @best.wel.moe and @digitalmethods.net! I added the feature to collect widgets from Google and Bing (it was a lot of work, please use it 😂). Feedback welcome.

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Sal Hagen @hetsalwel.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

Throwback to my proudest citation, from "Exhaustive Survey of Rickrolling in Academic Literature" arxiv.org/pdf/2204.06826

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Liliana Bounegru @lboungr.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

🔍 How can creative coding techniques like soundscaping and video recomposition help us unpack political issues + influencer practices on TikTok? 🎵📹 📖 Insights from explorations w/ @publicdatalab.bsky.social around the 2024 Romanian elections at @digitalmethods.net winter school:

buff.ly

The great Romanian election TikTok replay – Public Data Lab

In December 2024, the European Commission launched an investigation following “serious indications that foreign actors interfered in the Romanian presidential elections using TikTok.” The elections…

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Sal Hagen @hetsalwel.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

they're finally adding the 25th hour

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jonathan w. y. gray @jwyg.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

"Chatbots and LLMs for Internet Research?" - opening of @digitalmethods.net #dmi25 at University of Amsterdam ✨🧵https://www.digitalmethods.net/

Richard Rogers opening Digital Methods Winter School 2025 - with image of "shrimp Jesus".

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Gavin Mueller @gavinmueller.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

Have to finish setting this up later but for now: new publication! Using the Birmingham School's subcultural theory to look at political compass memes, we attempt to theorize how "digital political subcultures" are refashioning political subjectivity www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

tandfonline.com

Revolution by other memes: on the playful subcultures of r/PoliticalCompassMemes

Based on an analysis of 300k opening posts to the popular image-based discussion forum r/PoliticalCompassMemes, in this paper we offer an empirical analysis of how the ‘political compass’ meme temp...

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Sal Hagen @hetsalwel.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

ik maakte hier al wrapped grollen voordat het cool was, om het maar even gezegd te hebben

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Sal Hagen @hetsalwel.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

good album: open.spotify.com/album/4mZgIo...

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Philipp Lorenz-Spreen @lorenzspreen.eurosky.social · 20/11/2024

To all the researchers here on @bsky.app for whom the topic data access from online platforms is relevant, please consider writing a short feedback on the draft of the delegated acts for the DSA: ec.europa.eu/info/law/bet...

ec.europa.eu

European Commission - Have your say

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