Nathalie Van Raemdonck
@nathalievanraemdonck.com
Social media networks and social norms, PhD student at Brussels University (VUB). Belgian living in Barcelona, internet night crawler, STS
Pinned
I became a Doctor yesterday 🥳 presented my thesis "What Others afford: sociotechnical shaping of normative processes on social media platforms". In it I describe how the way we all shape each other's behavior on social media is shaped by the architectures of the digital environments we inhabit.
Belgium will participate in Eurovision.
So disappointing. @rtbf.be fails to see that its platform is being weaponized by the state of Israel to maintain the impression that the country holds a large support for its genocide and occupation by the European population. www.rtbf.be/article/euro...
So disappointing. @rtbf.be fails to see that its platform is being weaponized by the state of Israel to maintain the impression that the country holds a large support for its genocide and occupation by the European population. www.rtbf.be/article/euro...
Eurovision : la RTBF a tranché et elle participera - RTBF Actus
La Belgique participera donc au concours de l’Eurovision. Une décision attendue puisque, pour rappel, il revenait à...
www.rtbf.be
December 5, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Belgium will participate in Eurovision.
So disappointing. @rtbf.be fails to see that its platform is being weaponized by the state of Israel to maintain the impression that the country holds a large support for its genocide and occupation by the European population. www.rtbf.be/article/euro...
So disappointing. @rtbf.be fails to see that its platform is being weaponized by the state of Israel to maintain the impression that the country holds a large support for its genocide and occupation by the European population. www.rtbf.be/article/euro...
Reposted by Nathalie Van Raemdonck
This explains something that has always mystified me about drivers who rail against bike lanes and transit. Why WOULDN'T you want people to have options not to drive? It would make your own driving better! But they don't just want good traffic, they want to reinforce the NORM of driving
This is actually quite brilliant, up to and including the final sentence 🔥
December 1, 2025 at 1:04 PM
This explains something that has always mystified me about drivers who rail against bike lanes and transit. Why WOULDN'T you want people to have options not to drive? It would make your own driving better! But they don't just want good traffic, they want to reinforce the NORM of driving
Reposted by Nathalie Van Raemdonck
HELP WANTED: We need a remote / hybrid experience lead for #ATmosphereConf
Leave a comment in the forum and/or DM me discourse.atprotocol.community/t/atmosphere...
FAQ entry discourse.atprotocol.community/t/atmosphere...
Leave a comment in the forum and/or DM me discourse.atprotocol.community/t/atmosphere...
FAQ entry discourse.atprotocol.community/t/atmosphere...
November 27, 2025 at 6:43 PM
HELP WANTED: We need a remote / hybrid experience lead for #ATmosphereConf
Leave a comment in the forum and/or DM me discourse.atprotocol.community/t/atmosphere...
FAQ entry discourse.atprotocol.community/t/atmosphere...
Leave a comment in the forum and/or DM me discourse.atprotocol.community/t/atmosphere...
FAQ entry discourse.atprotocol.community/t/atmosphere...
Reposted by Nathalie Van Raemdonck
And now AI slop is taking a serious bite out of SocArXiv.
Thread:
Thread:
In light of record submission rates and a large volume of AI-generated slop, SocArXiv recently implemented a policy requiring ORCIDs linked in the OSF profile of submitting authors, and narrowing our focus to social science subjects. Today we are taking two more steps:
/1
/1
November 27, 2025 at 7:28 PM
And now AI slop is taking a serious bite out of SocArXiv.
Thread:
Thread:
Reposted by Nathalie Van Raemdonck
Citarella noted that he’s been warning, for more than half a decade, that too many people remain under the mistaken impression that “what happens on the internet isn’t real.” www.newyorker.com/culture/podc...
The Leftist Podcaster Who Studies Online Radicalization
Joshua Citarella sees his YouTube show “Doomscroll” as a “tactical media experiment” to funnel young internet users toward esoteric left-wing ideas.
www.newyorker.com
November 27, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Citarella noted that he’s been warning, for more than half a decade, that too many people remain under the mistaken impression that “what happens on the internet isn’t real.” www.newyorker.com/culture/podc...
Reposted by Nathalie Van Raemdonck
tl;dr: Bluesky began with genuine promise: a new social media platform where users could feel safer, but inconsistent moderation quickly eroded trust.
When systemically marginalized users pushed back, Bluesky’s leadership minimized concerns and began to target them for bans.
When systemically marginalized users pushed back, Bluesky’s leadership minimized concerns and began to target them for bans.
Bluesky’s CEO meltdown: How leadership continues to fail its most marginalized users
tl;dr: Bluesky began with genuine promise: a new social media platform where systemically marginalized users could feel safer, but…
plutopsyche.medium.com
October 6, 2025 at 4:54 PM
tl;dr: Bluesky began with genuine promise: a new social media platform where users could feel safer, but inconsistent moderation quickly eroded trust.
When systemically marginalized users pushed back, Bluesky’s leadership minimized concerns and began to target them for bans.
When systemically marginalized users pushed back, Bluesky’s leadership minimized concerns and began to target them for bans.
These companies truly belong in hell.... internal documents showed META calculated that regulatory fines would be smaller than revenue from scam ads, so they just... keep running them at a higher price. www.reuters.com/investigatio...
Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show
Meta projected 10% of its 2024 revenue would come from ads for scams and banned goods, and it internally estimates that its platforms show users 15 billion scam ads a day, company documents show.
www.reuters.com
November 20, 2025 at 3:10 PM
These companies truly belong in hell.... internal documents showed META calculated that regulatory fines would be smaller than revenue from scam ads, so they just... keep running them at a higher price. www.reuters.com/investigatio...
Reposted by Nathalie Van Raemdonck
This is one of the worst, most horrifying exposures we have ever seen. It is hard to overstate how bad the things that people are using tools like for are, and it's insane to pretend like these tools are anything other than nonconsensual porn machines
www.404media.co/ai-porn-secr...
www.404media.co/ai-porn-secr...
Massive Leak Shows Erotic Chatbot Users Turned Women’s Yearbook Pictures Into AI Porn
Chatbot roleplay and image generator platform SecretDesires.ai left cloud storage containers of nearly two million of images and videos exposed, including photos and full names of women from social me...
www.404media.co
November 19, 2025 at 5:11 PM
This is one of the worst, most horrifying exposures we have ever seen. It is hard to overstate how bad the things that people are using tools like for are, and it's insane to pretend like these tools are anything other than nonconsensual porn machines
www.404media.co/ai-porn-secr...
www.404media.co/ai-porn-secr...
Reposted by Nathalie Van Raemdonck
When you recreate Twitter, you shouldn't be surprised that you've recreated Twitter.
Boggles my mind that Bluesky's leadership seems to have done very little forward thinking about these issues.
Boggles my mind that Bluesky's leadership seems to have done very little forward thinking about these issues.
Bluesky announces moderation changes focused on better tracking, improved transparency — TechCrunch
Bluesky is making moderation changes, including the addition of new reporting categories, strikes, and more clarity when communicating with users about violations.
apple.news
November 19, 2025 at 6:46 PM
When you recreate Twitter, you shouldn't be surprised that you've recreated Twitter.
Boggles my mind that Bluesky's leadership seems to have done very little forward thinking about these issues.
Boggles my mind that Bluesky's leadership seems to have done very little forward thinking about these issues.
I became a Doctor yesterday 🥳 presented my thesis "What Others afford: sociotechnical shaping of normative processes on social media platforms". In it I describe how the way we all shape each other's behavior on social media is shaped by the architectures of the digital environments we inhabit.
November 14, 2025 at 1:55 PM
I became a Doctor yesterday 🥳 presented my thesis "What Others afford: sociotechnical shaping of normative processes on social media platforms". In it I describe how the way we all shape each other's behavior on social media is shaped by the architectures of the digital environments we inhabit.
Reposted by Nathalie Van Raemdonck
A staggering statistic: "North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year." What are we doing?
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:
a 🧵 1/n
Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
a 🧵 1/n
Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
November 12, 2025 at 1:58 PM
A staggering statistic: "North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year." What are we doing?
Reposted by Nathalie Van Raemdonck
"Conversations about “internet sovereignty” should not mistakenly assume that the exercise of sovereign state power over corporations will necessarily translate into greater agency for its people", @prateekwaghre.com writes www.techpolicy.press/indias-searc...
India’s Search for Digital Sovereignty | TechPolicy.Press
Prateek Waghre discusses India’s push for tech sovereignty amid volatile US ties, digital dependence, and global shifts in trade.
www.techpolicy.press
November 11, 2025 at 8:51 AM
"Conversations about “internet sovereignty” should not mistakenly assume that the exercise of sovereign state power over corporations will necessarily translate into greater agency for its people", @prateekwaghre.com writes www.techpolicy.press/indias-searc...
Reposted by Nathalie Van Raemdonck
Reposted by Nathalie Van Raemdonck
How can we know if a law or policy has chilled people’s free expression? Can we use science to find out?
Excited to join @penney.bsky.social, author of a new book on Chilling Effects, & @katygb.bsky.social on Dec 10th to discuss the science of civil liberties
knightcolumbia.org/events/the-s...
Excited to join @penney.bsky.social, author of a new book on Chilling Effects, & @katygb.bsky.social on Dec 10th to discuss the science of civil liberties
knightcolumbia.org/events/the-s...
The Science of Chilling Effects
knightcolumbia.org
November 5, 2025 at 6:49 PM
How can we know if a law or policy has chilled people’s free expression? Can we use science to find out?
Excited to join @penney.bsky.social, author of a new book on Chilling Effects, & @katygb.bsky.social on Dec 10th to discuss the science of civil liberties
knightcolumbia.org/events/the-s...
Excited to join @penney.bsky.social, author of a new book on Chilling Effects, & @katygb.bsky.social on Dec 10th to discuss the science of civil liberties
knightcolumbia.org/events/the-s...
"if you CAN tinker, it's empowering, if you MUST tinker, it's discouraging" @robin.berjon.com at #decidimfest on the difficulties of decentralized social media systems
November 5, 2025 at 3:53 PM
"if you CAN tinker, it's empowering, if you MUST tinker, it's discouraging" @robin.berjon.com at #decidimfest on the difficulties of decentralized social media systems
Great panel on digital sovereignty at #decidimfest with @francescabria.bsky.social : "we cannot build apps empowering popular sovereignty on top of critical infrastructure that is weaponized against democracy"
November 5, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Great panel on digital sovereignty at #decidimfest with @francescabria.bsky.social : "we cannot build apps empowering popular sovereignty on top of critical infrastructure that is weaponized against democracy"
Reposted by Nathalie Van Raemdonck
Ugh. The right wing bullshit machine is pumping out and amplifying fake videos (Sora, AI) of Black people talking about SNAP benefits, videos oozing with racist stereotypes, to justify / distract from the real human suffering that the SNAP suspension is going to cause. www.tiktok.com/t/ZTMqbgpgj/
Fox News Can’t Tell What’s Real Anymore part 2 #foxnews #viral
TikTok video by The Bulwark dh
www.tiktok.com
November 3, 2025 at 4:45 AM
Ugh. The right wing bullshit machine is pumping out and amplifying fake videos (Sora, AI) of Black people talking about SNAP benefits, videos oozing with racist stereotypes, to justify / distract from the real human suffering that the SNAP suspension is going to cause. www.tiktok.com/t/ZTMqbgpgj/
This interesting pre-print misses sth about the Twitter-like platform they've set up. Twitter affords a lot of abilities for users to make the content of others visible which isn't the case for all platforms, I wrote how this significantly shapes group dynamics journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
We built the simplest possible social media platform. No algorithms. No ads. Just LLM agents posting and following.
It still became a polarization machine.
Then we tried six interventions to fix social media.
The results were… not what we expected.
arxiv.org/abs/2508.03385
It still became a polarization machine.
Then we tried six interventions to fix social media.
The results were… not what we expected.
arxiv.org/abs/2508.03385
Can We Fix Social Media? Testing Prosocial Interventions using Generative Social Simulation
Social media platforms have been widely linked to societal harms, including rising polarization and the erosion of constructive debate. Can these problems be mitigated through prosocial interventions?...
arxiv.org
October 29, 2025 at 3:33 PM
This interesting pre-print misses sth about the Twitter-like platform they've set up. Twitter affords a lot of abilities for users to make the content of others visible which isn't the case for all platforms, I wrote how this significantly shapes group dynamics journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Reposted by Nathalie Van Raemdonck
Very much enjoyed this presentation on the role of social norms & demarcation in platform regulation by @nathalievanraemdonck.com - long story short “democracy is hard” @ckatzenbach.bsky.social #ZeMKI20
October 24, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Very much enjoyed this presentation on the role of social norms & demarcation in platform regulation by @nathalievanraemdonck.com - long story short “democracy is hard” @ckatzenbach.bsky.social #ZeMKI20
Reposted by Nathalie Van Raemdonck
I wrote about the Reiser brothers and their hilarious, disgusting Listers documentary for Slate:
slate.com/culture/2025...
slate.com/culture/2025...
One of the Funniest Documentaries of the Year Is Streaming for Free on YouTube
Listers is a journey into the dark and cringy heart of one of the world’s most peculiar hobbies.
slate.com
September 15, 2025 at 5:29 PM
I wrote about the Reiser brothers and their hilarious, disgusting Listers documentary for Slate:
slate.com/culture/2025...
slate.com/culture/2025...
Successfully defended my thesis to the jury this week 🥳 Public defense on 13/11! grateful to @snurb.info @tomdeleyn.bsky.social @pieterballon.bsky.social and Ksenia Ermoshina for their insightful feedback and @ikepicone.bsky.social @imuses.bsky.social and Trisha Meyer for their amazing supervision!
September 19, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Successfully defended my thesis to the jury this week 🥳 Public defense on 13/11! grateful to @snurb.info @tomdeleyn.bsky.social @pieterballon.bsky.social and Ksenia Ermoshina for their insightful feedback and @ikepicone.bsky.social @imuses.bsky.social and Trisha Meyer for their amazing supervision!
Reposted by Nathalie Van Raemdonck
Andreessen Horowitz, which will be one of three firms to lead the acquisition of TikTok, is headed by Marc Andreessen, a Silicon Valley tech titan who considered himself to be "an unpaid intern" of Elon Musk's DOGE. But he's not the only major Trump ally involved with this deal
TikTok’s U.S. business would be controlled by an investor consortium including Oracle, Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz under a framework the U.S. and China are finalizing.
Details Emerge on U.S.-China TikTok Deal
Oracle, Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz are part of an investor consortium that would control an 80% stake.
on.wsj.com
September 16, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Andreessen Horowitz, which will be one of three firms to lead the acquisition of TikTok, is headed by Marc Andreessen, a Silicon Valley tech titan who considered himself to be "an unpaid intern" of Elon Musk's DOGE. But he's not the only major Trump ally involved with this deal
Reposted by Nathalie Van Raemdonck
Too bad the GOP effectively criminalized studying how information moves online and news orgs laid off and demonized all the reporters who covered the burgeoning online accelerationist performative death cults. All of that work was somehow "censorship" that needed to be stopped. Now we're here.
September 12, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Too bad the GOP effectively criminalized studying how information moves online and news orgs laid off and demonized all the reporters who covered the burgeoning online accelerationist performative death cults. All of that work was somehow "censorship" that needed to be stopped. Now we're here.
Reposted by Nathalie Van Raemdonck
did a little media criticism www.theverge.com/politics/777...
The WSJ carelessly spread anti-trans misinformation
The Wall Street Journal’s fuckup while covering Charlie Kirk’s killing needs more than an editor’s note.
www.theverge.com
September 12, 2025 at 10:04 PM
did a little media criticism www.theverge.com/politics/777...
MAGA and libs are tumbling over themselves to pinhole the Charlie Kirk shooter as left or right but @garbageday.email piece is probably the most accurate take.
Shooting a big name for internet clout and accelerationism, with no clear political motive other than being an agent of chaos.
Shooting a big name for internet clout and accelerationism, with no clear political motive other than being an agent of chaos.
September 12, 2025 at 10:42 PM
MAGA and libs are tumbling over themselves to pinhole the Charlie Kirk shooter as left or right but @garbageday.email piece is probably the most accurate take.
Shooting a big name for internet clout and accelerationism, with no clear political motive other than being an agent of chaos.
Shooting a big name for internet clout and accelerationism, with no clear political motive other than being an agent of chaos.