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Rakesh Sengupta

@rakeshsengupta.bsky.social
647 followers 189 following 16 posts

Assistant Professor, University of Toronto. Film and media studies. He/him.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Rakesh Sengupta
Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 25/04/2026
Seems like random"data centers don't consume water" dude who went viral because of the effective altruists money has a new victim. Glad the victim wrote about it though. www.bennjordan.com/blog/the-alt...
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Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 21/04/2026
The investment is the latest example of circular financing during the AI boom—the practice of tech companies investing in AI startups to help the latter buy products or services from the original investors.
arstechnica.com
Anthropic gets $5B investment from Amazon, will use it to buy Amazon chips
Anthropic secures 5 gigawatts of Amazon’s custom silicon as Claude demand soars.
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Kiera Butler @kieraevebutler.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
New from me: Tech bros have launched a campaign to convince Christians that AI is godly: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
motherjones.com
Tech billionaires want Christians to believe in AI
For Peter Thiel and JD Vance allies, the tech right is framing AI as a moral—even divine—mission.
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Disjunctions Magazine @disjunctionsmag.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
@rakeshsengupta.bsky.social, on slop as counterpropaganda.
disjunctionsmag.com
Asymmetric Image Wars
Or, how I learnt to stop worrying and love the slop
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Rakesh Sengupta @rakeshsengupta.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
My article on the geopolitics of ‘slop’ as computational pastiche, cannibalization of Western IP, and (hopefully) the erosion of Hollywood’s visual monopoly over the spectacle of war.
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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 20/03/2026
Deeply embarrassing stuff
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Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
Three years into the AI era, educators say they face a major crisis. Bosses and clients replacing tutoring jobs with AI. Replacing *athletic coaching* with AI. Many students now cannot grasp why they would *not* use AI for schoolwork. And worse. The 5th installment of AI Killed My Job—educators:
bloodinthemachine.com
"If AI is writing the work and AI is reading the work, do we even need to be there at all?" Education workers reveal a growing crisis on campus and off
AI Killed My Job: Educators.
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404 Media @404media.co · 13/03/2026
“AI can never be AI without humans. It is not artificial intelligence. It’s African intelligence...We are training our own death. We train ChatGPT and it’s killing us slowly.” Kenyan workers are still the underpaid labor behind AI training, moderation, and sex chatbots. Now, they're fighting back.
404media.co
'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back
Kenyan workers are still the underpaid labor behind AI training, moderation, and sex chatbots. The Data Labelers Association is fighting back.
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Rakesh Sengupta @rakeshsengupta.bsky.social · 20/12/2025
Great to be back at my old workplace for the GenAI & Creative Practices conference. Thanks so much to @tpoell.bsky.social and the wonderful organizing team for two terrific days of timely conversations.
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Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
It is really just an unspeakably beautiful thing that a socialist was able to defeat the nexus of the world's most curdled billionaires for mayor of New York
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Sana Saeed @sanasaeed.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
You’re here and not necessarily hearing / reading the experiences of Palestinians in Gaza in real time. Here are just some of the tweets from Palestinians in Gaza as Israel turns this into one of the bloodiest nights of the genocide.
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kottke.org @kottke.org · 12/05/2025
This is a little bit genius: an analysis of OpenAI based on a close reading of a 22-second video of CEO Sam Altman cooking pasta. “His kitchen is a catalogue of inefficiency, incomprehension, and waste.” [ft.com]
ft.com
Three things we learned about Sam Altman by scoping his kitchen
All Drizzle, no sizzle
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 10/05/2025
Poisoning the air of a Black community for a fucking chatbot.
politico.com
'How come I can’t breathe?': Musk's data company draws a backlash in Memphis
The company’s turbines — enough to power 280,000 homes — run without emission controls in an area that leads Tennessee in asthma hospitalizations.
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Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
The AI jobs crisis is not coming—it's here right now. It just might not look the way many thought it would. www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-ai-job...
bloodinthemachine.com
The AI jobs crisis is here, now
It's not coming, it has already arrived.
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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 29/04/2025
can’t tell you how much joy i get from seeing pierre poilievre lost his seat
Pierre Poilievre declared defeated in his seat
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Rest of World @restofworld.org · 21/04/2025
New data reveals just how many African workers are indirectly employed in the tech sector, doing outsourced jobs like content moderation, customer service, and data annotation for AI models restofworld.org/2025/big-tec...
restofworld.org
How Big Tech hides its outsourced African workforce
New data reveals the hidden network of African workers powering AI, as they push for transparency from the global companies that employ them indirectly.
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Soraya Nadia McDonald @soraya.press · 17/04/2025
"In an earlier post, she wrote: "As for the inevitable death, if I die, I want a loud death, I don't want me in a breaking news story, nor in a number with a group, I want a death that is heard by the world, a trace that lasts forever, and immortal images that neither time nor place can bury."
euronews.com
Photographer Fatima Hassona killed ahead of Cannes documentary debut
The Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassona, killed along with ten family members in an Israeli air strike on her home in northern Gaza, is the star of a documentary due to be screened at the Cannes film festival next month.
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
New from 404 Media: we've obtained a leak from inside Palantir describing Palantir's plan to help ICE find people to deport. Includes peoples' location. Palantir is expecting a backlash, preparing comments for employees to tell their family. Says ICE "mature partner" www.404media.co/leaked-palan...
404media.co
Leaked: Palantir’s Plan to Help ICE Deport People
Internal Palantir Slack chats and message boards obtained by 404 Media show the contracting giant is helping find the location of people flagged for deportation, that Palantir is now a “more mature pa...
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Rakesh Sengupta @rakeshsengupta.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
Such a shameful capitulation to Hindutva’s manufactured victimhood, modelled on the same lobbyist playbook for silencing all criticism and dissent. The Empire’s multicultural facade is now an open endorsement of caste discrimination.
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Akela Lacy @akelalacy.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
SCOOP: Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi went into an interview today hoping he would come out a U.S. citizen. Instead, ICE arrested him. theintercept.com/2025/04/14/i...
theintercept.com
Palestinian Student Leader Was Called In for Citizenship Interview — Then Arrested by ICE
Palestinian Columbia student leader Mohsen Mahdawi was called in for a citizenship interview. Instead, ICE arrested him for deportation.
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Sandeep Bakshi @sandeepbak.bsky.social · 12/04/2025
Please share in your networks. Goldsmiths, UoL are offering 5 scholarships in Undergrad & MA courses for Palestinian students. The scholarships include: tuition fee waiver, £19,550 allowance, return trip to & from the UK. Eligibility details & further info at link👇🏽 www.gold.ac.uk/fees-funding...
gold.ac.uk
Palestinian Scholarship
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No Tech For Apartheid @notechforapartheid.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
BREAKING— Last week, while Israel re-escalated its genocide in Gaza, Google Cloud acquired Israeli start-up Wiz, signaling Google's continued investment in Israel and its commitment to genocide profiteering.
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Farran Smith Nehme 🇱🇧 @selfstyledsiren.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
Will @theacademyusa.bsky.social use its worldwide prominence to speak up for an Oscar-winning director? Hamdan Ballal was attacked and seriously injured—and the IDF arrested HIM while he was in the ambulance. No charges, no sign of him since. Where are you, AMPAS? chng.it/dzMJYfSbqM
chng.it
Can you spare a minute to help this campaign?
Global Filmmakers call for the release of Hamdan Ballal
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Society for Cinema and Media Studies @scmstudies.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
It is with profound sadness that we mourn the passing of Jonathan Sterne, an extraordinary scholar whose groundbreaking work transformed the fields of sound studies, media theory, and the cultural study of technology.
In memoriam photo of Jonathan Sterne (1970-2025)
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Rakesh Sengupta @rakeshsengupta.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Jonathan Sterne performing in Montréal, Fall 2022. An absolute titan of the field and one of the very best human beings I’ve come across in academia (and I was never formally a student or colleague).
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Drop Site @dropsitenews.com · 18/03/2025
WATCH | Australian medic Muhammad Mustafa describes the aftermath of last night’s attacks at Baptist Hospital in Gaza City: “It was just mostly women and children burned head to toe, limbs missing, heads missing…”
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Mondoweiss @mondoweiss.net · 18/03/2025
🧵 Israel has resumed its genocide in Gaza. After weeks of systematically violating ceasefire agreements, Israel launched massive airstrikes across Gaza overnight, targeting homes, hospitals, and shelters for displaced civilians.
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Jennifer Blaylock @jennblaylock.bsky.social · 16/03/2025
In an effort to make scholarship on African film and media at #SCMS25 visible, please note and share widely these papers and panels with an African focus.
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Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
Wow. Watch this from Zohran Mamdani. It looks like the exact "fight" and "conviction" people are hopelessly asking for from the people in charge of the Democratic party:
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Spencer Ackerman @attackerman.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
Mahmoud Khalil has become a political prisoner for protesting a US-backed genocide. His detention heralds new vistas of repression made possible by institutions and technological developments begun by the War on Terror.
forever-wars.com
Mahmoud Khalil's Detention Is A War on Terror Milestone
ICE turned a campus activist for Palestine into a political prisoner. Witness a coalescence of several post-9/11 currents that threaten your most basic freedoms
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david ehrlich @davidehrlich.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
NO OTHER LAND!!!! No Other Land now has more Oscars than it did distribution offers. a great and enduring shame upon the American film industry. free Palestine forever.
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Mél Hogan / The Data Fix @melhogan.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
We discuss AI images and fascism in this episode -- have a listen: shows.acast.com/the-data-fix... it'll help you understand that aesthetic...
shows.acast.com
Indexicality, with Roland Meyer and Gillian Rose | The Data Fix with Dr. Mél Hogan
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Karen Hao @karenhao.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
Wait a minute. You mean to say that we don’t need to blanket the earth with data centers and coal & gas plants to maybe arrive at a future where we can wave a magical AGI wand to make all of the consequences of that go away? Yes. This is a false trade off. Let that sink in. 16/
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Paul Renfro @renfro.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
Stunning cowardice by the AHA Council. For shame. "The Council considers the Resolution to Oppose Scholasticide in Gaza ... to contravene the Association’s Constitution and Bylaws because it lies outside the scope of the Association’s mission and purpose." 🗃️ www.historians.org/news/busines...
historians.org
Business Meeting Resolution Update - AHA
Update as of January 17, 2025: The AHA Council deplores any intentional destruction of Palestinian educational institutions, libraries, universities, and archives in Gaza. The Council considers the “R...
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Drop Site @dropsitenews.com · 15/01/2025
Journalist Anas Al-Sharif removes his helmet and announces a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel. His voice steady as his fellow Palestinians lift him into the air in celebration. For 15 months, the Al-Jazeera correspondent has reported on the genocide of his people in Gaza.
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Mondoweiss @mondoweiss.net · 15/01/2025
Israel's genocide in Gaza has failed because although it destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure, it couldn’t destroy Gaza itself; it couldn't destroy the people. Just as Israel has been unable to destroy Palestine after 76 years of trying. mondoweiss.net/2025/01/pale...
mondoweiss.net
Palestine Letter: How Gaza taught us hope
Israel’s genocide in Gaza has failed because although it destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure, it couldn’t destroy Gaza itself; it couldn’t destroy the people. Just as Israel has been unable to destroy Pal...
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Rakesh Sengupta @rakeshsengupta.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
A stereotypical film about Mexico, this time from a Frenchman, earning Hollywood’s applause. Business as usual for the Global North.
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 24/12/2024
This Haaretz piece of IDF soldiers’ confessions of human rights violations absolutely wrecked me www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024...
IDF confessionIDF confessions IDF confessoons
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Rakesh Sengupta @rakeshsengupta.bsky.social · 14/12/2024
Why would professors want to automate TA labour? TAships are financially essential for grad students and also an important step in their development as future academics. Garbage tools like this one are designed to undermine university pedagogy and should be on the watchlist of faculty unions.
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Tech Won’t Save Us @techwontsave.us · 13/12/2024
💥 FINAL SHOWDOWN 💥 32 of the worst people in tech have been narrowed down to the final 2 — a return of the matchup we had in 2022. Who will take the crown? 🗳️ Cast your vote: forms.gle/C6W5vLXTTraU...
Elon Musk vs Peter Thiel
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Idrees Ahmad @idreesahmad.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
96% of children in Gaza feel that their death is imminent and almost half want to die as a result of trauma. 92% of the children in the survey were “not accepting of reality”, 79% suffer from nightmares and 73% exhibit symptoms of aggression.
theguardian.com
Death feels imminent for 96% of children in Gaza, study finds
Needs assessment by NGO reveals the huge psychological impact of the war with Israel on young people
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Rakesh Sengupta @rakeshsengupta.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
What an excellent and timely resource for media scholars to learn from, engage with, and incorporate into their teaching and research!
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David Cecchetto @davidcecchetto.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
Really looking forward to my first SCMS as part of a panel on Synthetic Media with @rakeshsengupta.bsky.social, Nadine Chan, and @shanedenson.bsky.social #scms2025
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 21/11/2024
ICC issues arrest warrant for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
dlvr.it
ICC issues arrest warrant for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
Move by international criminal court puts Netanyahu at risk of detention if he travels to certain other countries The international criminal court has issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the county’s former defence…
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Rakesh Sengupta @rakeshsengupta.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Fully agreed. The SCMS board’s reluctance to issue a statement condemning the destruction of every university and the killing of thousands of students and hundreds of professors in Gaza implicates the field of film and media studies in the ongoing scholasticide. Solidarity is the bare minimum.
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Al Jazeera English @aljazeera.com · 20/11/2024
"Gaza has become a graveyard for children" Israel has killed at least 17,400 Palestinian children since last October. 🔴 LIVE updates: aje.io/lvp7pu
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Aswin Punathambekar @aswinp.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Please spread the word, and do send us an abstract if you are reflecting on solidarity, worldmaking, media and communication infrastructures, and figures like Bruce Lee, Kwame Nkrumah, and Jawaharlal Nehru.
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