I know a lot of people are using AI to replace therapy, but all I’m talking about to my real life therapist is my anxiety over AI

Do We Still Care About Climate Change? Cost of living and jobs. Housing affordability. Trump. These are currently the top concerns for people living in Canada, according to recent polls. Climate change is an ever growing existential threa...

And if you'd like to talk about democracy and climate policy, please join me and a stellar panel on April 29 at VPL for "Do We Still Care About Climate Change?"
@ubcdemocracy.bsky.social vpl.bibliocommons.com/events/69c6d...

Power to the People! Ready for Democracy’s Second Act? | The Tyee How do we rev up the role of citizen? A free event Wednesday explores the question. Here’s a Q&A preview.

Want to talk about renewing democracy, and making citizens a real part of it? Then check out this Tyee article about Democracy's Second Act with @davidmoscrop.com, and then register for the event tonight at the VPL with @jenstden.bsky.social @thetyee.ca thetyee.ca/Culture/2026...

Sarah Cox Joins The Tyee as Our New Biodiversity Reporter | The Tyee She brings decades of experience and will be the lead reporter on a new beat. A Tyee Q&A.

Lovely fact from Sarah Cox, new at @thetyee.ca: a society on Vancouver Island built a highway underpass "so red-legged frogs and salamanders can safely navigate the busy road. They call themselves SPLAT... the Society for the Prevention of Little Amphibian Tragedies.”
thetyee.ca/Tyeenews/202...

Do We Still Care About Climate Change? Cost of living and jobs. Housing affordability. Trump. These are currently the top concerns for people living in Canada, according to recent polls. Climate change is an ever growing existential threa...

Looking forward to joining this in-person Vancouver event April 29. Spaces are filling up fast.

Do We Still Care About Climate Change?
vpl.bibliocommons.com/events/69c6d...

🧵 3 papers by me & my team Ullrich Ecker Fabio Carrella Emily Spearing Almog Simchon ask an urgent question: if you tell people they're being manipulated by AI — deepfakes, AI-written articles, microtargeted ads — is the manipulation defanged?
Thread 👇

1/10

We have lost a giant, and a hero to countless social justice activists across Canada and around the world.

My thoughts & memories on the passing of Stephen Lewis:
open.substack.com/pub/sethdkle...

Thanks for sharing that @lizneeley.bsky.social. For a view from Canada, here’s a brief on what universities can do to help support researchers that may face online abuse.

bsky.app/profile/ubcd...

Companies position these apps as democratic participation, but researchers such as Fenwick McKelvey & CSDI’s @cjten.bsky.social suggest they may undermine trust and transparency in online campaigns.

Politicians are being sold AI-powered 'digital fighters' A new app gets around bot bans by recruiting real people to post political messages generated by AI.

Stronger regulations are needed, Tenove says, to “reset the playing field so you're not at a disadvantage for avoiding doing stuff that seems unethical or undemocratic.” Read the full article: www.nationalobserver.com/2026/02/24/i...

Politicians are being sold AI-powered 'digital fighters' A new app gets around bot bans by recruiting real people to post political messages generated by AI.

🤖 Cyborg propaganda? Tech companies are looking for new methods of circumventing digital platform rules and election laws in order to shape election discourse, and sometimes that means bringing humans into the loop. www.nationalobserver.com/2026/02/24/i...

Just raising the possibility I was communicating other than a) has ruined my day. 😭

Politicians are being sold AI-powered 'digital fighters' A new app gets around bot bans by recruiting real people to post political messages generated by AI.

“The idea that you would give your contact book information to a party without the consent of the people in your address book is deeply problematic."

@cjten.bsky.social discusses AI-powered political campaign tools via @nationalobserver.com

Canadian politicians are being sold AI-powered civilian patrols A new app gets around bot bans by recruiting real people to post political messages generated by AI.

My latest story is out. Bots get banned on social media.
The workaround? Real humans posting AI-generated messages in a gamified system, coordinated by an AI command centre. And it's being offered to your local town councillor.

www.nationalobserver.com/2026/02/24/i...

Computational Social Science in Action: Vaccine & Climate Policy Narratives How do vaccine and climate policy debates unfold online—and how can social scientists study them rigorously at scale?

How do vaccine and climate debates unfold online, and how can social scientists study them at scale? Join Johanna Klapproth, Mark Shakespear, @lauraknelson.bsky.social, and @cjten.bsky.social to discuss research strategies and how they can inform real-world policy.
www.eventbrite.ca/e/computatio...

We’re thrilled that The Security of Self: A Human-Centric Approach to Cybersecurity is out, just in time for some holiday reading! The book’s contributors—including CSDI directors @cjten.bsky.social and @heiditworek.bsky.social—put people at the centre of understanding and advancing cybersecurity.

Alberta towns see AI data centres as 'second coming of oil' — but some worry at what cost Municipalities across Alberta are trying to figure out whether they can — or should — try to cash in on the influx of AI data centre developers looking to set up shop in the province. For some council...

Across Alberta, municipalities are weighing the pros and cons of hosting AI data centres. I used @nationalobserver.com's Civic Searchlight tool to figure out which towns are looking at data centres and dig into how they are thinking about the costs & benefits www.nationalobserver.com/2025/12/16/n...

Trump Administration Turning to Private Firms in Cyber Offensive President Donald Trump’s administration is preparing to turn to private businesses to help mount offensive cyberattacks against foreign adversaries, according to people familiar with the matter, poten...

In the "everyday more bad news" category:

Trump Administration Turning to Private Firms in Cyber Offensive 🧵
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Inside the AI-powered conspiracy machine selling ‘Truthwear’ to Canadians Multiple researchers told Canada’s National Observer that conspiracy companies like Mutinni are the inevitable result of artificial intelligence colliding with the attention economy. Social media algo...

Step 1. Use AI to generate glossy conspiracy videos about climate change and Health Canada at scale

Step 2. Monetize in a Shopify store selling merch

Read my latest investigation into why conspiracy-commerce businesses are the logical endpoint of attention economy.

The Resonant Computing Manifesto Technology should bring out the best in humanity, not the worst—a manifesto for resonant computing built on five principles that reject hyper-scale extraction for human flourishing.

Remember when the internet wasn't awful? We can go back to that.

Some friends and I have released the Resonant Computing Manifesto: a call to bring back such a time, to see if we can bring back a world where technology works for us, rather than against us.

resonantcomputing.org

Very happy to see this thoughtful approach to AI from @thetyee.ca

“Censorship” is a thought-terminating cliché. These people want you to believe that:

- labeling is censorship
- fact-checking is censorship
- transparency is censorship
- research is censorship

What they’re doing is redefining anything that might inconvenience a hard-right populist as censorship.

Congratulations to the Committee on this major report. Lots of good ideas in here to strengthen democracy in BC. Thanks to chairs @j-blatherwick-mla.bsky.social and @mla-wardstamer.bsky.social, and all the other committee members and staff.
I hope people check it out! lims.leg.bc.ca/pcms/file/19...

🌟 Today, we launch our latest policy brief 'How Universities Can Better Address Online Harassment'. The brief reviews international best practices for institutions to support researchers facing abuse.
democracy.ubc.ca/publications...

I’m proud of this work with Netheena, @heiditworek.bsky.social and our @ubcdemocracy.bsky.social team.

DOH. HUGE NEWS in the tariff wars!

(Point Roberts is a tiny sliver of America you can basically only reach from Canada.)

⚠️On September 10, the CSDI and the Electoral Integrity Project co-hosted the Technology and the Future of Democracy conference – bringing together over 80 attendees from academia, civil society, and policy practice.
🧵Read more below!
democracy.ubc.ca/news/technol...
democracy.ubc.ca/news/stress-...

AI misinformation poses a growing threat to public trust and safety.

Join us for a panel of cross-sectoral experts who will discuss policy, regulation and technical interventions: sciencepolicy.ca/event/ai-driven-misinfor...

Dis:connectivity and Globalisation Globalisation is one of the most contested concepts of our time. From its promise of borderless flows of people, goods, and finance in the 1990s, it embodies today almost the opposite: deglobalisation...

@heiditworek.bsky.social discusses the undulation of communication technologies and their ability to both attract and oppose the energy of globalization in @globaldiscnct.bsky.social's recent volume.

Find Heidi's chapter and the entire open-access collection: www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

70 leading Canadians, civil society groups ask Carney to protect Canada's 'digital sovereignty' | CBC News Dozens of experts, academics and organizations have released an open letter urging Prime Minister Mark Carney to swiftly "defend Canada's digital sovereignty" and protect the country from the whims of...

Proud to have signed this letter alongside a pretty amazing set of people & organizations.

These are complex issues for sure but it’s very helpful to have such a public, detailed framework agreed to by such a group.

www.cbc.ca/news/politic...