Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Sophia Freuden

@sophiafreuden.bsky.social

500 followers 320 following 90 posts

Counter-info ops girlie, Russianist, OSINT, democracy resilience. Aggressive Oregonian. Views my own 🌲 she/her

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Sophia Freuden @sophiafreuden.bsky.social · Jul 18

My latest research on LLM grooming, co-authored with @ninajankowicz.com and @garymarcus.bsky.social, found that OpenAI's so-called "reasoning" o3 model cited Pravda network content 26.8% of the time in response to specific prompts.

This research got cited today in a column by the Financial Times:

Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.bsky.social · Jul 17

Disinformation warriors are ‘grooming’ chatbots - on.ft.com/46hV6qW via @FT

Disinformation warriors are ‘grooming’ chatbots

Russian hackers are exploring ways to inject propaganda into the training data of generative AI models

on.ft.com

3 53 110

Reposted by Sophia Freuden

Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 13d

Unreal. The casual reader of this @nytimes.com hed and subhed will have no inkling whatsoever that Trump's "characterization" is wildly false and that it's a bad faith *pretext.* Time to get better at conveying the fundamentally pretextual nature of these authoritarian decrees already.

110 510 1.7K

Reposted by Sophia Freuden

Senator Ron Wyden @wyden.senate.gov · 13d

Duck you, Trump.

A photo of someone outside the Portland ICE facility wearing a duck costume holding a sign that reads “Portland will outlive him”

110 990 5.4K

Reposted by Sophia Freuden

Senator Ron Wyden @wyden.senate.gov · 14d

Trump is launching an authoritarian takeover of Portland hoping to provoke conflict in my hometown. I urge Oregonians to reject Trump’s attempt to incite violence in what we know is a vibrant and peaceful city. I will do everything in my power to protect the people in our state.

The Associated Press @apnews.com · 14d

BREAKING: Trump says he'll send troops to Portland, Oregon, as he expands military deployments in U.S. cities.

Trump says he'll send troops to Portland, Oregon, to handle 'domestic terrorists'

President Donald Trump says he'll send troops to Portland, Oregon, to handle “domestic terrorists” as he expands his controversial deployments to more American cities.

bit.ly

260 1.4K 5K

Reposted by Sophia Freuden

Eric Umansky @ericumansky.bsky.social · 14d

So top Portland cops wrote & *testified* that fed agents have been "instigating and causing" conflict.

They said agents were firing pepper balls unprovoked and "without any apparent warning"

When a Portland chief called a federal agent w/ Qs, the agent hung up.

www.oregonlive.com/crime/2025/0...

“It makes it extremely difficult for us to deal with, as the folks that are on the other side of this fence have been, night after night, actually instigating and causing some of the ruckus that’s occurring down there,” Dobson said.

“Okay. So it’s your testimony ICE is creating the problem?” Rask asked.

“I’m saying that they’re not following best practice,” Dobson replied.

75 1K 2.2K

Reposted by Sophia Freuden

Matthew @dlthings.bsky.social · 13d

# of paragraphs for news orgs to mention there's no discernable need to deploy troops to Portland, Oregon

The Guardian: 1st paragraph
BBC: 4th paragraph
AP: 5th paragraph
Time: 6th paragraph
Politico: 8th paragraph
NPR: 9th paragraph
CNN: 10th paragraph
NBC: 12th paragraph
Fox News: never mentions

160 2.6K 6.7K

Reposted by Sophia Freuden

Senator Ron Wyden @wyden.senate.gov · 13d

Every single one of these clips was taken today in downtown Portland. Portland doesn’t want or need a federal takeover. If Trump insists on sending federal “resources” he can start with funding health care, bridges, affordable housing, and wildfire protection to name a few.

290 3.4K 9.6K

Reposted by Sophia Freuden

Senator Ron Wyden @wyden.senate.gov · 13d

Taken just a few minutes ago outside the ICE facility in Portland that Trump claims is under siege. My message to Donald Trump is this: we don’t need you here. Stay the hell out of our city.

510 5K 13K

Sophia Freuden @sophiafreuden.bsky.social · 13d

As a Portlander, let me just roll out the welcome wagon by saying fuck off. PDX has been victim of right-wing disinformation painting it as a hell hole, with a lot of buy-in from the liberal media on that front. It's not a wasteland, but none of you bother to check if that's actually true.

1 1 3

Sophia Freuden @sophiafreuden.bsky.social · 15d

Whatever your thoughts on Soros or the ultra rich that tend to fund these organizations (I, too, hate billionaires), the fact is that these institutions enable a lot of good. This includes activities protected by the First Amendment.

Sophia Freuden @sophiafreuden.bsky.social · 15d

The issue in America obviously isn't the threat of democratization; we are, or at least were until recently, a democracy. But to figures in the American regime, the role of civil society--Soros, OSF, Ford, Carnegie, whatever--is the same as it is to Putin: a threat against their hold on power.

1 2

Sophia Freuden @sophiafreuden.bsky.social · 15d

Although Soros, OSF, and those civsoc entities were never guilty of anything dreamt of in Putin's paranoia, civil society does generally play a critical role in both democratic resilience and democratization--especially by enabling free speech and networks of information about government wrongdoing.

1 1

Sophia Freuden @sophiafreuden.bsky.social · 15d

Putin was convinced that the very real anti-government sentiment expressed in 2012 that nearly toppled his regime was somehow a CIA engineered plot enabled by organizations similar to OSF. Many of these orgs were labeled as foreign agents and eventually criminalized. Does this sound familiar yet?

1 2

Sophia Freuden @sophiafreuden.bsky.social · 15d

The evidence painted a picture of Russian--Putin's--paranoia that Soros, OSF, and similar entities were fomenting revolutions in the 2000s-2010s in Georgia (Rose) and Ukraine (Orange, Euromaidan) that would spread contagiously to Russia. The Bolotnaya protests of 2012 were Putin's breaking point.

1 2

Sophia Freuden @sophiafreuden.bsky.social · 15d

Can you get which hypothesis received the most evidence across these methods?

2, the one in which Russia attacked Soros via disinfo and propaganda for both real and alleged involvement in pro-democracy efforts and full democratization across the U.S. and post-Soviet space.

2 2

Sophia Freuden @sophiafreuden.bsky.social · 15d

My methods consisted of interviews with roughly a dozen high-profile individuals, tens of thousands of data points scraped from RT, and countless memoirs, legal documents, and histories spanning Russia, Hungary, Georgia, Ukraine, and the US--most notably Russia's intervention in the 2016 elections.

1 1

Sophia Freuden @sophiafreuden.bsky.social · 15d

3. A constructivist hypothesis that Russia was responding to Western denial of Russia's "deserved" great power status by attacking individuals tied to Western great power

1 1

Sophia Freuden @sophiafreuden.bsky.social · 15d

2. An institutionalist take that held that civil society organizations provided linkages between competitive autocracies like Russia (pre-2022) and democracies, therefore providing pathways for democratization

1 1

Sophia Freuden @sophiafreuden.bsky.social · 15d

My thesis had three competing hypotheses, or reasons why Russia did this:

1. A neorealist, structural take on Russia viewing Soros as a representative of Western great power status and global order

1 1

Sophia Freuden @sophiafreuden.bsky.social · 15d

In 2019-21, I wrote my master's thesis on why the Russian government pursued info ops--disinformation and propaganda campaigns--against individuals, with George Soros being the primary case study. I hate how relevant it is now.

Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 16d

This is, without any exaggeration, exactly how Putin and Orbán proceeded — using antisemitism to discredit the idea of civil society and political opposition, and as an excuse to undo the rule of law.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/u...

Justice Dept. Official Pushes Prosecutors to Investigate George Soros’s Foundation

www.nytimes.com

3 3 16

Sophia Freuden @sophiafreuden.bsky.social · 23d

The same goes for tech. Instead of "AI", I wish people invested in alternatives to the handful of social media platforms--especially YouTube--so that independent creators can actually be independent.

Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 23d

If you’re rich and not a coward, this is what you’d refer to as a “market opportunity” to dominate a media ecosystem that’s about to be covered in grotesque government slop. To be a pop of color in a sea of beige will be easier than ever. People will flock to it. You gotta be a little brave, though.

1 7

Reposted by Sophia Freuden

Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 23d

General pattern in regime change: the comedy gets better and then it gets banned.

41 840 3.2K

Reposted by Sophia Freuden

David Kaye @davidakaye.bsky.social · 24d

in this environment, we don't need another think tank or another podcaster. we need honesty from the remaining independent media - really proper framing & fearless investigation - and constant high-level narrative from whatever opposition remains at the top of the democratic party.

1 12 81

Sophia Freuden @sophiafreuden.bsky.social · 25d

"To lie so brazenly to [Klein's own] readers and to obscure Kirk’s positions signals that his foremost interest is not to inform but to perform... Klein can cosplay as a serious thinker all he likes, but it’s past time we stopped taking him seriously."

Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 26d

I told myself I wouldn't do a snap reaction to Ezra Klein's noxious editorial. I said, "If you're still mad about it on Monday, then you can write about it."

I'm still mad about it!