Author | Lightnews

Vee Lawson @lawsonvee.bsky.social · 6d

"At the heart of our work together was the question: How can the online communities that we participate in use tools that truly reflect our values?"

This looks so useful for #TeamRhetoric folks seeking to reframe our social media pedagogy!

Nathan Schneider @ntnsndr.in · 6d

Over the past year, my lab has hosted a cohort of people from around the world who are trying to move their communities to online tools under their control. OUT TODAY: Learn about their thinking and doing in our collectively authored Open Social Network Cookbook. https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/

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Femma @femma.bsky.social · 11d

so Grokipedia is really bad, in case anybody was wondering, but I'm going to just kind of quickly write a short thread about why. I'm going to focus on the article of neo-fascist William Luther Pierce, because I just published my MA thesis on him a few months ago.
Which Grokipedia cites.

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Vee Lawson @lawsonvee.bsky.social · 11d

Me adding all the Grokipedia pages to the @waybackmachine.bsky.social archive for future research use

a laptop with a picture of a kitten on it

Alt: A cat is frantically "typing" on a laptop. An image of a kitten yelling is superimposed over the typing cat's face.

media.tenor.com

Reposted by Vee Lawson

Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 12d

This is so bleak:

www.404media.co/a16z-is-fund...

Last week, I wrote about Doublespeed, essentially a click farm that sells “synthetic influencers” to astroturf whatever product or service you want across social media, despite it being a clear violation of every social media platform's policy on inauthentic behavior. But that was just the tip of the iceberg.

a16z’s Speedrun is also backing:

Creed: An AI company “rooted in Christian Values” which produces Lenny, a “Bible-based AI buddy who's always got your back with wise words, scripture-inspired guidance, and a listening ear whenever you need it.”
Zingroll: The “world’s largest Netflix-quality AI streaming platform,” which is another way of saying it’s a Netflix populated exclusively with AI Slop.
Vega: which is building “AI-powered social orbits.” What does that mean? Not entirely clear, but the company has produced one of the most beautiful Mad Libs paragraphs I’ve ever seen: “We’re building the largest textual data moat on human relationships by gamifying the way people leave notes for each other. For the first time, LLMs can analyze millions of raw, human-written notes at scale and turn them into structured meaning, powering the most annotated social graph ever created.”
Moona Health: an AI-powered Sleep care app the company says is covered by insurance. “Our AI-powered platform automates insurance claims and scheduling and analyzes sleep data – providing personalized session guidelines to therapists,” Moona says.
Jooba: “The world’s first autonomous recruiting firm.”
Margin: “The World’s first AI powered credit card.” Margin says “Customers earn points, with dynamic rewards that adapt to their preferences in real time.”
First Voyage: A wellness app that gives you AI “mythological pets that turn wellness into play.”
Axon Capital: billed as “DeepMind for Finance,” Axon says it has “pioneered brain-inspired, low-latency AI for financial markets.”

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Vee Lawson @lawsonvee.bsky.social · 13d

If you see this, post a vampire that isn't Dracula

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Dr. Damien P. Williams! Look over here! … It's All For You! @wolvendamien.bsky.social · 17d

Remember those times i said we were headed for an epistemic crisis because bad people were gonna use deepfakes to make propaganda & conspiracy theories & destabilize consensus reality-making & how the central paradigm of "generative AI" enables, encourages, & was indeed built on this premise?

Yeah.

Gales of November ReMar-mbered @histoftech.bsky.social · 17d

This person is one hundred percent correct and it’s scary af. We will never “media literacy” our way out of this as a society. We are about to reap the whirlwind when it comes to misinformation, disinformation, and informational warfare.

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Vee Lawson @lawsonvee.bsky.social · Oct 2

Attn: Everybody with good music taste:

Following a fit of delusion during race signups back in January, I'm attempting a trail race in which I will be #running (read: speed hiking) overnight, and I'm putting together a playlist to get me through.

What are your best bangers, any genre/any language?

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kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · Oct 1

For my buds still sad about the end of Real Life mag, and anyone else bored of the current state of writing-about-tech, it's time to get excited — a very exciting new left tech-etc magazine is dropping later this month. Empty Set! No website yet but follow on insta www.instagram.com/emptysetmaga...

Empty Set is founded on the idea that
technology writing is at an impasse. Despite
growing interest in "tech criticism," the genre
has found itself flattened and constrained
in recent years. As publications dedicated to
grappling with the many contradictory shades
of our techno-culture have shuttered-Real
Life, WIRED Ideas-
-the industry has shifted
towards hype cycle-based business reporting,
at best, and thinly veiled advertorials at
worst. Though there remain a few bastions of
critical thought, these have mostly survived as
watchdogs, too tired from keeping up with a
neverending cycle of abuses to speculate more
broadly on what our evolving relationship to
technology is doing to us.

We believe that technology writing can be so
much more. After all, despite what we so often
assume, technology isn't synonymous with
the latest gadget, or digital this-and-that. It
is ancient-as old as our bodies and words.
If language was one of our first technologies,
then shouldn't technology writing give rise
to poetry? If our bodies were the basis upon
which all technical prostheses emerged, then
shouldn't technology writing know how to
move? The tech writing remaining today is too
sober, too timid in style and subject matter
to capture what it feels like to inhabit our
world: the millenarian fervor of the techno-
evangelists, the riptides of rage and desire we
traverse daily on our devices, the anxieties and
distant hopes that shimmer on the horizon.
We need writing that not only thinks about
technology, but with it.

The stakes are clear. Having failed to
address this latent world- where technology
becomes religion, flesh and code intermingle,
and ghosts haunt the machine--we've let the
worst among us steer the conversation. Peter
Thiel sells out lectures on the Anti-Christ
while pseudo-intellectual bloggers peddle
dollar-store fascism by misreading Hegel. In
our failure to experiment boldly, to speculate
and myth-make and take all the strange
corners of our techno-culture seriously, leftist
technology criticism has handed over the reins
of sensemaking to feudalist wannabes and
reactionary trolls. Donna Haraway once wrote
that "it matters what stories we tell to tell other
stories with…. what thoughts think thoughts."
Empty Set is dedicated to finding the concepts
and thoughts that we'll need in order to tell a
new story about our technologized lives.

Writing in the dust of this critical landscape,
it's only fitting that our first issue takes on
decay. Though the promise of technology is
one of eternity (living forever, endless access
to information) it's rot that undergirds our
world today: brainrot, entropy, planned
obsolescence, 404 errors, poor images, lossy
compression, nutrient-rich humus, carbon-
rich biomatter turned oil and coal. Rot is a
process that encapsulates the short-sighted
excesses of our techno-culture, as well as a
potential force we might channel into new
hopes. After all, without decomposition there
could be no regrowth, nothing underfoot for
life to arise in. By sitting with this decay, we
hope something new might take root.

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Dr. Marc-André Argentino @maargentino.com · Sep 30

It is Book Launch day for @amaramarasingam.bsky.social and My edited volume "Contemporary Far-Right Culture The Art, Music, and Everyday Practices of Violent Extremism"

www.routledge.com/Contemporary...

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Vee Lawson @lawsonvee.bsky.social · Sep 29

Hardly, it's a move to curtail criticism.

"The filing added: 'Very few would-be commentators are prepared to bear costs of this magnitude. So, when word gets out that the price tag of criticizing Ethan is this high—that speech will disappear. But that is precisely what Ethan Klein wants.'"

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Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhet & Comp @cfshrc.bsky.social · Sep 19

Celebrate #FeministFridays with us! ✨ Got an article published, written a book review, received a teaching award, or reached another milestone? We’d love to highlight your achievements!

Use this Google Form to share your wins! forms.gle/6JiytdhVS5oT...

Feminist Fridays graphic with text reading: "Tell us about your scholarship and accomplishments!"

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Vee Lawson @lawsonvee.bsky.social · Sep 17

Hey #TeamRhetoric, SJSU is hiring an Assistant WPA! We're a union campus (@cfaunited.bsky.social), and in my first year here, I've found the department to be welcoming + supportive. There's a strong community especially among the junior faculty.

jobs.sjsu.edu/en-us/job/55...

San José State University - Details - Assistant Professor - Assistant Writing Programs Administrator

jobs.sjsu.edu

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Vee Lawson @lawsonvee.bsky.social · Aug 28

This doomscrolling break is brought to you by #4C26 announcements: See you all in Cleveland for "Wresting Power Back: Tactical Technical Communication for Social Media Under Rising Authoritarianism"

Dear Professor Lawson,
Congratulations!
I am delighted to let you know that the following proposal(s) has been accepted for the 2026 CCCC Annual Convention, "Conference and Our Conversations," taking place in Cleveland, Ohio, March 4-7:
Wresting Power Back: Tactical Technical Communication for Social Media Under Rising Authoritarianism

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Vee Lawson @lawsonvee.bsky.social · Aug 21

The fundie-snarking communities have been celebrating all day. There are no words for the harm Dobson caused so many children.

For the unfamiliar, D.L. & Krispin Mayfield's "Strongwilled" describes Dobson's child abuse advocacy & its role in Christian Nationalism (www.strongwilledproject.com)

Roxane Gay @roxanegay.bsky.social · Aug 21

May James Dobson burn and rot below for all eternity. A cruel, venal man who caused grave harm with every breath he took.

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Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhet & Comp @cfshrc.bsky.social · Aug 14

🩵 Friendly reminder! 🩵

If you're still revising your ideas for Peitho's Summer 2026 special issue, Academia in Crisis: How Feminist Rhetorical Scholars Respond, be sure to send them by tomorrow, August 15.

CFP: tiny.cc/PeithoSummer...

Peitho Special Issue, Summer 2026
Call for Proposals
Academia in Crisis: How Feminist Rhetorical Scholars Respond

Editors: Patty Wilde, Erin Costello Wrecker, and Justine Trinh
Submissions: 2026peithospecialissue@gmail.com
Proposals Extended! due August 15

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Vee Lawson @lawsonvee.bsky.social · Aug 8

This is how Meep and Mushroom celebrate #InternationalCatDay

Two cats lay on a rug, recreationally kicking each other in the head.

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Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · Aug 6

*Academics in early August

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@DrJenHo @drjenho.bsky.social · Aug 5

For any BlueSky friends engaged in Digital Humanities projects, here's a place to apply for seed money

www.acls.org/programs/acl...

ACLS Digital Justice Grants

The ACLS Digital Justice Grant program is designed to address the inequities in the access to support for digital work across various fields.

www.acls.org

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Vee Lawson @lawsonvee.bsky.social · Jul 24

I'm adding a blurb to my syllabi clarifying that I will never use AI to evaluate or respond to student work. If I can't be bothered to read it, why should students be bothered to write it? This ends up with bots responding to bots all the way down, imo.

Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · Jul 23

“…faculty members will be able to click an icon that connects them with various AI features…, like a grading tool, a discussion-post summarizer… Canvas’s parent company, Instructure, is also in partnership w/ OpenAI… so instructors can use generative-AI technology as part of their assignments.”

Instructors Will Now See AI Throughout a Widely Used Course Software

New features integrated into Canvas include a grading assistant, a discussion-post summarizer, and even a way to pair assignments with generative AI tools.

www.chronicle.com

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Vee Lawson @lawsonvee.bsky.social · Jul 23

Mushroom and I are catching up on #FemRhet2025 virtual presentations--I love that there's a space to leave comments or questions for presenters.

Here, we're listening to Dr. Julia Allen's talk on feminist rhetorical furtherance.

#FemRhetHappensHere

A grey and white cat sits on a soft blanket in front of a table and laptop. A presentation is blurred in the background.

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Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhet & Comp @cfshrc.bsky.social · Jul 23

If you're still buzzing from #FemRhet2025, consider submitting to Peitho's upcoming special issue, Academia in Crisis: How Feminist Rhetorical Scholars Respond. As our time together at the conference made clear, the value of feminist rhetorics is higher now than ever.

CFP: tiny.cc/PeithoSummer...

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Vee Lawson @lawsonvee.bsky.social · Jul 22

Reposting for the evening crowd

Vee Lawson @lawsonvee.bsky.social · Jul 22

Sending up the #TeamRhetoric bat signal--who's writing on tech comm + social media + trans rhetorics (aside from Avery Edenfield, whose work is great)? Grad students?

Am trying to recruit for a 4Cs Virtual Institute proposal!

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Vee Lawson @lawsonvee.bsky.social · Jul 22

Sending up the #TeamRhetoric bat signal--who's writing on tech comm + social media + trans rhetorics (aside from Avery Edenfield, whose work is great)? Grad students?

Am trying to recruit for a 4Cs Virtual Institute proposal!

Vee Lawson @lawsonvee.bsky.social · Jul 20

First blooms on this rose I planted in June! It's a DA Desdemona--such a fresh, lemony fragrance 🌱#GardenSky

A small, blush pink rose with cup shaped petals.

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