🚨 NEW from IST: The CVE Program is at a crossroads. Recent funding issues have exposed key challenges, and without action, the vulnerability identification landscape will fragment. Today’s report provides recs for global policymakers to reimagine the CVE Program for the next 25 years.
🛡️ Learn more:
🚨 New report out: the first cross-platform, cross-country baseline on misinformation in Europe
Based on large scale data analysis: ~2.6M posts (24B views) collected on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, X & YouTube
science.feedback.org/first-measurement-disinformation-major-platforms-europe
Teens love to build video games, and doing so can teach them critical computer science and cybersecurity skills. Check out a new video by teen developers from @hackclub www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiPk...
Just a reminder that Russia doesn't care if you are on the left or the right of any issue. They only care that you are an American.
"Senior Russian officials encourage Americans to blame leftists and Ukraine supporters for conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s murder" meduza.io/en/feature/2...
What happened today is awful. People who fight against gun violence, people who loathe what Charlie Kirk stood for, must also condemn political violence. It’s a vicious cycle. This is a very dangerous moment.
“I’m the only door between the Iranians and our water system.”
Powerful reporting by @npr.org @jennamclaughlin.bsky.social on how Franklin - and volunteer Tim Pappa - are stepping in to help water operators defend against foreign cyber threats. #CyberCivilDefense #Take9
www.npr.org/2025/09/08/n...
Civilization Works 990: 2024, $1.6M 2024, $841K 2022, $559K
Since Michael Shellenberger namechecked me in his latest fundraising appeal for his "Civilization Works" grift, I pulled up his 990. Last year, he pulled in $1.6 million to fight the censorship complex that *he made up* -- double what he got the year before.
These scam artists are raking it in.
"A soldier with links to several far-right groups has admitted trying to pass on critical and classified information about New Zealand Defence Force bases to what he thought was a foreign agent, but was actually an undercover officer." www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/soldier-a...
“In a world where scams are becoming harder to identify, it’s valuable to know how to quickly respond to a potential fraud,” says @aspenpolicyacademy.bsky.social director @betsycooper.bsky.social in an AI Journal op-ed. Read here for tips on navigating cyber risks👇: aijourn.com/think-youve-...
Bones of contention: Facebook commentary in Sinhala on the Chemmani mass grave excavations
Study of 4.2k+ Sinhala comments against 11 Facebook posts published between mid-July-Aug.
www.linkedin.com/pulse/bones-... (LinkedIn)
sanjanah.wordpress.com/2025/08/13/b... (WordPress)
#SriLanka #WarCrimes
BREAKING: New Report Finds Post-Election Audits in Most Swing States Provide Scant Evidence to Confirm Election Outcomes. READ MORE: freespeechforpeople.org/new-report-f...
New in TiCS w @dgrand.bsky.social @gordpennycook.bsky.social
It’s been ~10yrs since misinfo research exploded but our paradigms are stuck in the post-2016 “fake news” model
Time for new approaches:
o True/False → Content that misleads
o Belief → Behavior
o Eval interventions in ambiguous settings
A wide range of public interest content, including posts about the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine and parliamentary debates on grooming gangs, is now being blocked for UK online users by social media companies trying to comply with the Online Safety Act.
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Man who says elections (that don’t go his way) are “rigged” also claims economic numbers (that aren’t going his way) are “faked”. Who’d’ve thunk it?
"Meta, which after 2016 spent more than $100 million to fund 100 fact-checking organizations, ended a partnership with U.S. fact-checkers."
Many thoughts but one is that Meta should be paying Community Notes contributors. It's absurd to contribute for free.
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
Gig alert: AI Safety research fellow role at Anthropic — remote, possibly good opportunity for new college graduate
job-boards.greenhouse.io/anthropic/jo...
🚨 New preprint alert:
We show that web-browsing GPT and LLaMA models can infer social media user demographics with reasonable accuracy—using only usernames.
This opens new possibilities for social media research in the post-API era but raises important privacy concerns.
We would like to thank our staff, Board, students, and community, who make this work possible. As we continue this work in 2025, we remain energized about how young people will shape the future of tech!
Cyber threats increasingly come in all shapes and sizes, and too often, the targets of these attacks are under-prepared and under-resourced. IST is excited to announce renewed support from Craig Newmark Philanthropies for our efforts to advance the future of digital security.
🛡️ Learn more:
As the organization prepares to sunset in 2025, PEN America is thrilled to integrate its invaluable resources into our digital safety programming to ensure they remain accessible to those who need them most. Read the full announcement here: pen.org/press-releas... (3/3)
Here’s a summer steal for you - Amazon has “The Information Animal” ebook on sale for $15 and the best part is, you can read it now. I want to make all sorts of jokes about this being the key to becoming a best seller, but I hear @katelynnvogt.bsky.social telling me to knock it off : a.co/d/1icgFjU
Networks, not hierarchies. Participation — memes, responsiveness, engagement…
One party gets it, while the power center of the other just doesn’t.
The website released to address the chemtrail and geoengineering theories is solid and confirms the science, per scientists who reviewed it.
Let’s see what the response is like…
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/c...
I wrote a similar response to a similar argument in a libertarian law pub —just came out!
The arguments are well-trod by this point; my essay responds to a specific provocation.
Look: the structures for discourse are different now. Sensemaking changed. So: we adapt.
lawliberty.org/content-mode...
Scam ads are all over Meta’s platforms, but now there’s a way to catch them. Try our new @polidashboard semantic search feature, which is perfect for finding scam ads fast.
Visit: PoliDashboard.org and see what you can find.
Join 92NY for a Newmark Civic Life Series event exploring how today’s movement for reproductive justice is operating against the backdrop of rising authoritarianism and the weaponization of federal funding. Attend online 6/25 7 PM ET www.92ny.org/event/fighti...
I looked at this book to see how they covered a topic I know well: the "censorship" narrative. I have a chapter in my own 📖 that tried to discuss that issue w/detail, facts, & nuance.
"In Covid's Wake" chose to talk up Bhattacharya's fantasies of being censored and hide the truth in the footnotes.
Timely and important and available for immediate download—>
🚨In PNAS🚨
The right often accuses fact-checkers of political bias
But we analyzed Community Notes on Musk's X and found posts flagged as "misleading" are 2.3x more likely to be written by Reps than Dems!
The issue is Reps sharing misinformation, not fact-checker bias...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
