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Rūta Kazlauskaitė

@rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social
3.1K followers 1.4K following 82 posts

Researcher, PhD, University of Helsinki. Memory politics, VR/XR, emotions, propaganda, populism.

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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
My new chapter, “Virtual Heartlands: Populism, Emotion, and the Spirit of Place in Virtual Reality,” is out in "Media and the Spirit of Populism," edited by Katja Valaskivi, Johanna Sumiala, Kaisa Tiusanen, Helmi Halonen. www.routledge.com/Media-and-th...
routledge.com
Media and the Spirit of Populism
Media and the Spirit of Populism explores the role of contemporary media in the formation, dissemination, and circulation of the spirit of populism. These cutting- edge contributions to the field, wri...
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
In this blog post, I discuss how virtual reality is becoming a medium for immersive grievance politics. The promise of immersive proximity to real or imagined places, experiences, and events has made VR attractive to a wide range of storytellers, including propagandists.
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
What is "virtual history"? I had the opportunity to contribute a comment on Lucian Hölscher’s Koselleck Lecture in Bielefeld University (2023). It has now been published, alongside other comments by Chris Lorenz & Britta Hochkirchen, in a new open-access book. ⬇️
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Social Media Lab @socialmedialab.ca · 19/10/2025
The Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service has stopped sharing certain information with the United States: “Sometimes we no longer share things,” officials say, because the information has been finding its way into Kremlin hands. www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/n...
volkskrant.nl
Nederlandse diensten delen minder informatie met de VS: ‘Soms vertellen we dingen niet meer’
Het aantal dreigingen dat op Nederland afkomt is groot, zien de hoofden van de AIVD en de MIVD elke dag: niet alleen Russische agressie, maar ook de opmars van China als digitale macht en binnenlands ...
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Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
"In reality, AI erodes academic freedom, weakens critical reading, and subordinates the pursuit of knowledge to corporate interests." www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/a... (archive: archive.ph/Y6855)
project-syndicate.org
AI Is Hollowing Out Higher Education
Olivia Guest & Iris van Rooij urge teachers and scholars to reject tools that commodify learning, deskill students, and promote illiteracy.
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Teresa Heffernan @tjheffernan.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
Europe's DSA: "Under that law, platforms must submit regular transparency reports, partake in risk audits and act quickly to remove illegal content." Trump/Big Tech companies want to get rid of it so they can filter the world through their extremist algorithms.
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
Whistleblower testimonies by former Meta's employees describe how VR safety research was manipulated and findings erased that showed young children being exposed to grooming, sexual harassment and violence in its 3D worlds. Can't say I am surprised.
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 21/09/2025
Murdoch is getting TikTok. Now the Fox News social platform.
theguardian.com
Trump says Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch likely part of US TikTok investor group
US president tells Fox News ‘a man named Lachlan is involved … that’s a very unusual name, Lachlan Murdoch’
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
Before you buy the brand new Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses with the EMG wristband, you should be aware that measurement of the muscle response to electrical activity with EMG can capture and help infer highly sensitive information.
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
🧵👇
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 01/09/2025
My new project "Halbwachs in the Metaverse: Storyliving and democracy in the age of immersive spatial computing" begins today. Warm thanks to @koneensaatio.fi for supporting my work! Over the next 3 years, I'll explore how XR is reshaping political communication and digital politics. Stay tuned!
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Sam Cole @samleecole.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
we obtained footage of an agent in the middle of a raid at a Home Depot wearing Meta's smart glasses, and talked to experts about what that means: www.404media.co/a-cbp-agent-...
404media.co
A CBP Agent Wore Meta Smart Glasses to an Immigration Raid in Los Angeles
Video obtained and verified by 404 Media shows a CBP official wearing Meta's AI glasses, which are capable of recording and connecting with AI. “I think it should be seen in the context of an agency t...
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Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
OpenAI: "'We can begin to close the gap between those with access to learning resources and high-quality education and those who have been historically left behind,' says OpenAI’s head of education, Leah Belsky." Me: Read Roderic Crooks' Access Is Capture: How EdTech Reproduces Racial Inequality.
technologyreview.com
OpenAI is launching a version of ChatGPT for college students
Study Mode helps students walk through topics rather than just giving them answers. But there’s a glaring problem.
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
What a truly horrible idea.
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
A strong statement of resistance to the relentless marketing of "AI" in education spaces. I encourage all educators to have a look and consider signing on: openletter.earth/an-open-lett...
openletter.earth
An open letter from educators who refuse the call to adopt GenAI in education
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
Over the past two days, I attended the UN Virtual Worlds Day 2025, focused on "the future with AI-powered virtual worlds". Some of the recurrently used words when speaking about the future during the event were: equitable, inclusive, human-centric, resilient, inclusive, civic engagement, safe.
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
A while ago @greeneujournal.bsky.social invited me to contribute a short piece to their new edition on the theme of freedom. I wrote about extended reality, emotional manipulation, and emerging forms of disinformation (& what this means for our freedom). www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/snapshots-gr...
greeneuropeanjournal.eu
Snapshots: Grief, Extended Reality, Hope
As our emotions are triggered and compromised in a changing world, what are the indications for our freedom?
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
My new article is out in International Journal of Qualitative Methods! I introduce a methodological framework for the qualitative analysis of virtual reality content.
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Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
I'd argue the same is true about teaching: you cannot responsibly teach about AI without teaching about politics and the political projects being pursued by and through AI.
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
"What if AI had eyes?". XR wearables are becoming the delivery system for AI. This means richer data, more tracking, more granular inference-making about your patterns of attention, interaction, movement. Which means more opportunities for manipulation and control.
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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 21/05/2025
Nearly half of British youth would rather be young in a world with no internet. It’s a damning indictment of what social media has become. As its harms continue to grow, governments need to act — but they must take the right measures instead of reaching for easy fixes.
disconnect.blog
Social media must be reined in
Countries are adopting higher age limits, but they need to tackle addictive design practices that target everyone
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Social Media Lab @socialmedialab.ca · 14/05/2025
"Mark Zuckerberg Says Social Media Is Over. During testimony at Meta’s antitrust trial, the Facebook founder’s argument was, in so many words, that platforms like his are not what they used to be." www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...
newyorker.com
Mark Zuckerberg Says Social Media Is Over
During testimony at Meta’s antitrust trial, the Facebook founder’s argument was, in so many words, that platforms like his are not what they used to be.
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
Marketed as "memory tools", these AI wearables record all your conversations (also those of people around you), provide transcripts and summaries of your life, lists of notable moments and to-do lists, learn assumptions about you, and analyze your emotions through voice tone and inflection.
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
Just out! My interview with @tvn24.pl on VR and history education, and the darker potential of this technology: "VR in the Service of Patriotism? The Perfect Technology for Propagandists." VR isn't just about storytelling, it's about storyliving and emotional scripting. tvn24.pl/.../indoktry....
tvn24.pl
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
"She was at a lesson. Her brain — at war. Pola from class 8C has PTSD." @tvn24.pl, a leading Polish news channel, has just published a long investigative article about how war-themed VR films shown in Polish school-history lessons triggered a full-blown PTSD in a student.
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
Massive amounts of Russian propaganda (3,600,000 articles in 2024) are incorporated in Western AI, infecting their responses with false claims & propaganda. ChatGPT, Grok, Copilot, Meta AI, Google Gemini & Perplexity repeated disinformation by the Pravda network. www.france24.com/en/live-news...
france24.com
Russian disinformation 'infects' AI chatbots, researchers warn
A sprawling Russian disinformation network is manipulating Western AI chatbots to spew pro-Kremlin propaganda, researchers say, at a time when the United States is reported to have paused its cyber op...
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Mike Jensen @mikejjensen.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
Western countries failing to develop effective deterrence against an increasingly aggressive GRU gray zone campaign www.csis.org/analysis/rus...
csis.org
Russia’s Shadow War Against the West
Russia is conducting a violent and escalating campaign of sabotage and subversion against European and U.S. targets in Europe led by Russian military intelligence, according to a new CSIS database. Th...
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
Russia has been conducting Operation Ghostwriter in Poland with the aim to: *Disrupt Poland's relations with the US & NATO. *Disrupt Polish-Ukrainian relations. *Discredit the aid provided to Ukraine. *Create conditions for the outbreak of social unrest in Poland. wyborcza.pl/7,173236,300...
wyborcza.pl
Putin's Agents of Chaos: How Pro-Russian Trolls Poison Poland's Infosphere
Welcome to the dark world of Putinophiles and super-spreaders of pro-Russian propaganda. The Polish infosphere is filled with them. Some have seeped deep into government structures.
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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 10/03/2025
The Heritage Foundation is now planning to destroy the EU - with the help of Polish and Hungarian partners vsquare.org/heritage-fou...
vsquare.org
Renaming the EU, Dismantling the Commission: For What Polish and Hungarian Illiberals Seek U.S. Backing - VSquare.org
The Trump administration's most influential think tank, The Heritage Foundation, is receiving proposals from illiberal forces in Poland and Hungary on how to shape the future of the European Union. Th...
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Sense Hofstede @sensehofstede.nl · 09/03/2025
Zuckerberg’s Meta considered sharing user data with China, whistleblower alleges – The Washington Post: ‘in a failed attempt to win the approval of the Chinese Communist Party and bring Facebook to millions of internet users in China’
washingtonpost.com
Zuckerberg’s Meta considered sharing user data with China, whistleblower alleges
Meta went to extreme lengths, including developing a censorship system, in a failed attempt to bring Facebook to millions of internet users in China, according to a whistleblower complaint.
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Dr Emma L Briant 🇬🇧 in 🇺🇸 w/ 🐕 @emma-briant.co.uk · 28/02/2025
This was surely the plan all along.
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Paige ExGOP 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @itwasacoup.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
EXCLUSIVE: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week ordered U.S. Cyber Command to stand down from all planning against Russia, including offensive digital actions. therecord.media/hegseth-orde...
therecord.media
Exclusive: Hegseth orders Cyber Command to stand down on Russia planning
The secretary of Defense has ordered U.S. Cyber Command to stand down from all planning against Russia, including offensive digital actions, sources tell Recorded Future News.
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
If you want to help Ukraine, donate here: u24.gov.ua
u24.gov.ua
UNITED24 - The initiative of the President of Ukraine
UNITED24 was launched by the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the main venue for collecting charitable donations in support of Ukraine. Funds will be transferred to the official accounts of...
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Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies @ieet.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
The Neurorights Foundation, the NeuroTechnology Center at Columbia University, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation invite you to a symposium on the future of mental augmentation and human rights. ‎On Zoom - Wed, March 5, 2025, 11am – 3:45pm EST / 17:00 – 21:45 CET ntc.columbia.edu/mental-augme...
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Helsinki today. There cannot be real peace without justice. 🌻
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Marci Shore @marcishore.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
"The increase to Musk's wealth since Trump was elected president three months ago is greater than all of the American aid given to Ukraine over the last three years."-- @timothysnyder.bsky.social
open.substack.com
"Recoup the costs"
The sadism of American policy to war-torn Ukraine
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
Zuckerberg's long-term plan is to have access to users' brain data. Meta has been investing in neuroscience research and has made a breakthrough. They now have the tech to decode brain signals into sentences, which will be paired with one of the extended reality devices. www.vox.com/future-perfe...
vox.com
Meta’s brain-to-text tech is here. We are not remotely ready.
Why we should start caring about the right to brain privacy now.
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Tereza Hendl @terezahendl.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
Fascists are aligned, from the US to Russia…to Germany. And much of the Left is enabling them as it can’t identify russian far right imperialism, as a result of the Left’s lack of engagement with anti-imperialist East-European knowledge. We have warned about this www.thenation.com/article/worl...
thenation.com
"F*ck Leftist Westsplaining!"
Listening to voices of the Central and East European left.
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@davidgauke @davidgauke.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
If you’d asked AI to write a piece of Russian propaganda in the style of Donald Trump, this is what you’d get. Well done America, you’ve elected a Russian asset as your President.
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
Zelensky's approval rating is at 63%.
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Rūta Kazlauskaitė @rutakazlauskaite.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
It is no surprise that Trump is spewing russian propaganda. Do give this 2021 article from the Guardian a read. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021...
theguardian.com
‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years – ex-KGB spy
The KGB ‘played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality’, Yuri Shvets, a key source for a new book, tells the Guardian
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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.eu · 14/02/2025
I struggle to express just how *weird* Vance’s #MSC2025 speech was. This is a transatlantic security conference, happening while there is a war in Europe, and the US is announcing a partial withdrawal from European security. And the US VP speaks about (alleged) threats to free speech in Europe??
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Minna Ålander 🌻 @alanderminna.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
The audacity of Vance scolding Europe for having annulled Romanian election results due to Russian interference, representing a president who violently physically attacked the US system of governance and refused to acknowledge his defeat, still claiming the elections was stolen, is simply disgusting
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Steven Seegel @stevenseegel.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
Small acts of defiance also matter. Remember that there are no small acts of defiance.
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The RUTA Association @associationruta.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
Join us for the webinar “History is not an accident” with Maia Barkaia, Erica Marat and Iryna Zamuruieva. The speakers will reflect on the three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine as part of a broader web of Russian imperial and colonial violence. Register here: zoom.us/meeting/regi...
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Jay Rosen @jayrosen.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
This is from a 2020 presentation. Now it's just the chaos we live in, and no such description is needed.
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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
If this were happening somewhere else, folks would be saying this is the kind of thing that happens in a coup. www.reuters.com/world/us/mus...
reuters.com
Exclusive: Musk aides lock government workers out of computer systems at US agency, sources say
Aides to Elon Musk charged with running the U.S. government human resources agency have locked career civil servants out of computer systems that contain the personal data of millions of federal employees, according to two agency officials.
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Ryan Godfrey @ryangodfrey.com · 21/01/2025
Die Zeit won't even show the salute.
Zeit Online showing a black and white picture of Elon Musk giving the salute, with blue painter's tape covering his arm. The headline is "Ein Hitlergruß ist ein Hitlergruß ist ein Hitlergruß" (A Hitler salute is a Hitler salute is a Hitler salute).
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