Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Alexandre Alaphilippe

Szabolcs Panyi @szabolcspanyi.bsky.social · 22h

💥🔎💰NEW INVESTIGATION: Across the Visegrád countries, politicians use paid social media ads to attack journalists, human rights activists, and NGOs – while Meta & Google profit from this #SponsoredHate. Such ads reach tens of thousands of users while evading platform moderation. @vsquare.bsky.social

Sponsored Hate: How Politicians Paid for Meta Ads to Attack Journalists - VSquare.org

Across the Visegrád countries, politicians have increasingly used paid social media ads to attack journalists, human rights activists, and civil society organizations.

vsquare.org

5 34 69

Alexandre Alaphilippe @aa.disinfo.eu · 10h

The agenda is transparent. « We took the Freedom of speech away »

Three years from now, we will still hear:
- I thought he was joking
- I could not believe it
- I really thought he was fighting censorship

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 10h

Trump: "We took the freedom of speech away because that's been through the courts and the courts said you have freedom of speech, but what has happened is when they burn a flag it agitates and irritates crowds."

1

Reposted by Alexandre Alaphilippe

antibot4navalny | bot blocker | блокировщик ботов @antibot4navalny.bsky.social · 21h

We are grateful to the BlueSky @Safety.bsky.app team who suspended the entire list of 219 accounts that we found so far for this network.

1 15 57

Reposted by Alexandre Alaphilippe

Jakub Jaraczewski @jakubjaraczewski.bsky.social · 1d

🇺🇸🇸🇰🇭🇺🇵🇱 Once again, NGOs in the US would benefit greatly from talking to civil society in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia (and several other places) about how to deal with a government that's hostile to the part of the third sector that doesn't align with its ideology. 1/

3 22 50

Reposted by Alexandre Alaphilippe

Pascal Riché @pascalriche.bsky.social · 1d

Maurice Thorez avait inventé le soutien sans participation. Bruno Retailleau a inventé la participation sans soutien.

1 5

Reposted by Alexandre Alaphilippe

Eto Buziashvili @buziashvili.bsky.social · 3d

What can you do? Raise Georgia’s name in your capitals, on social media, at conferences, and on international platforms. Check in with your Georgian friends - they are not okay. And check in with your Ukrainian friends too. 11/12

4 16 94

Reposted by Alexandre Alaphilippe

Sam Jeffers @worklesshard.bsky.social · 2d

If they do, or have ideas about how to do it, or want to help, send them here: ir96l7a6vsf.typeform.com/to/fIk9XMZT

Save the EU Ad Libraries

Meta may soon switch off ad libraries in the EU and remove data going back to 2018. Help ensure this data is archived for research.

ir96l7a6vsf.typeform.com

2 2

Alexandre Alaphilippe @aa.disinfo.eu · 2d

Somebody has a copy of this library before they « accidentally » delete it?

Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 2d

Meta ends (at least for now) political ads in the EU today. Per their ad library data, they've run nearly 11,000,000 different political, social and issue ads in the EU since 2018 and made around €800m from them.

1 10 9

Alexandre Alaphilippe @aa.disinfo.eu · 3d

Important visualization of current air strikes targeting Ukraine.

Anton Gerashchenko @antongerashchenko.bsky.social · 4d

Massive Russian missile and drone attack on #Ukraine last night. Russia used different types of cruise missiles, Kinzhal missiles and drones on Ukrainian energy infrastructure and civilian objects. Western regions of Ukraine were under the most intense attack.

◾️Lviv and Lviv region: massive attack.

1 4 10

Reposted by Alexandre Alaphilippe

Manoel Horta Ribeiro @manoelhortaribeiro.bsky.social · 22d

Social media feeds today are optimized for engagement, often leading to misalignment between users' intentions and technology use.

In a new paper, we introduce Bonsai, a tool to create feeds based on stated preferences, rather than predicted engagement.

arxiv.org/abs/2509.10776

5 46 150

Reposted by Alexandre Alaphilippe

Karl (sad trombone noise enthusiast) @brainnotonyet.bsky.social · 4d

The Georgia protests that have been going on for hundreds of days are instructive in how you actually resist fascism and state capture.

Rusudan Djakeli @rusudandjakeli.bsky.social · 4d

Georgian Protesters have built barricades, while robocops wait on the other side. #GeorgiaProtests

13 61

Reposted by Alexandre Alaphilippe

Robin Berjon @robin.berjon.com · 4d

German-speaking friends — this one's for you, feat. @aa.disinfo.eu, yours truly, and a bunch of other buddies!

www.sueddeutsche.de/projekte/art...

Die Lüge: Gar nicht wahr

Die Lüge ist zurück. Mit Macht. Als Macht. Wie sie die Demokratie zerstört – und wer sich dagegenstemmt. Eine Reise an die Front.

www.sueddeutsche.de

1 5 14

Reposted by Alexandre Alaphilippe

Alberto Fittarelli @fittarelli.com · 6d

1/ NEW REPORT: “We Say You Want a Revolution” - An AI-Enabled Influence Operation Aimed at Overthrowing the Iranian Regime. We call it PRISONBREAK. Keep reading to find out why.

THREAD 🧵

We Say You Want a Revolution: PRISONBREAK - An AI-Enabled Influence Operation Aimed at Overthrowing the Iranian Regime - The Citizen Lab

We investigate a coordinated network of inauthentic X accounts that is spreading AI-generated content to induce revolt in Iran. The network has been active since 2023, but increased activity during th...

https://citizenlab.ca/2025/10/ai-enabled-io-aimed-at-overthrowing-iranian-regime]

1 12 16

Reposted by Alexandre Alaphilippe

Why oh why? @why0hy.bsky.social · 6d

What if everyone started saying X (formerly better)

1 3

Alexandre Alaphilippe @aa.disinfo.eu · 6d

"Being stuck" means being under judicial supervision for:
→ Complicity in the organized distribution of child pornography, drug trafficking, organized fraud, and criminal conspiracy for the commission of crimes or offenses.
→ Money laundering of crimes or offenses committed by an organized group.

1 2 3

Reposted by Alexandre Alaphilippe

antibot4navalny | bot blocker | блокировщик ботов @antibot4navalny.bsky.social · 8d

🧵 A network of 100+ BlueSky accounts pretending to be legitimate news syndication, some impersonating BBC News, @EuroNews.com, and @Meduza.io.

Built upon ≥70 Mastodon instances, then bridged to BlueSky using @ap.brid.gy, it feels like a social-media reinvention of the Portal 🇷🇺Kombat concept.

3 46 79

Reposted by Alexandre Alaphilippe

EU DisinfoLab @disinfo.eu · 8d

1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣ Triple publication on impact!

At EU DisinfoLab, we’re doubling down on one of the toughest challenges in countering disinformation: 𝗜𝗠𝗣𝗔𝗖𝗧 𝗠𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗨𝗥𝗘𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧. And we don’t stop at measuring – we aim to drive it.

🧵👇

2 9 16

Alexandre Alaphilippe @aa.disinfo.eu · 8d

For historical purposes, we need a full text transcription of these back-to-back speeches of Trump and Hegseth.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 8d

Trump to generals: "America is under invasion from within. We're under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in any ways because they don't wear uniforms. At least when they're wearing a uniform you can take them out."

1 1

Reposted by Alexandre Alaphilippe

Steve Marmel @marmel.bsky.social · 10d

ICE attempted
and failed to disappear a food delivery guy.
It needed to be scored.

2.4K 7K 27K

Reposted by Alexandre Alaphilippe

rasmuskleis.bsky.social @rasmuskleis.bsky.social · 9d

Disney/ABC caved and settled in December, Meta in January, X in February, Paramount/CBS in July, and now in September YouTube too. www.ft.com/content/8084...

YouTube pays $24.5mn to settle Trump censorship lawsuit

US president sued Google’s video platform after it blocked him from posting following the 2021 attack on the US Capitol

www.ft.com

1 4 5

Alexandre Alaphilippe @aa.disinfo.eu · 9d

« La filiale de Google, qui appartient lui-même au groupe Alphabet, n’a reconnu aucun tort et ne s’est pas engagée à une action corrective. »

www.lemonde.fr/pixels/artic...

Donald Trump obtient 22 millions de dollars de YouTube après la suspension de son compte à la suite de l’assaut du Capitole

Comme Meta, X et plusieurs médias, la plateforme de vidéos en ligne accepte à son tour un accord financier avec le républicain.

www.lemonde.fr

1 1

Alexandre Alaphilippe @aa.disinfo.eu · 9d

Non ce n’est pas « efficace ». A moins que l’on mesure l’efficacité par l’incapacité de dialoguer et de débattre.

www.lesoir.be/701828/artic...

L’attaque personnelle, une arme politique efficace sur les réseaux sociaux

Attaquer directement son adversaire politique, pratique bien connue sur X (anciennement Twitter), s’avérerait assez efficace, notamment en période de campagne électorale, d’après une étude de l’ULB. L...

www.lesoir.be

Alexandre Alaphilippe @aa.disinfo.eu · 9d

The work people like @ninajankowicz.com and @mmasnick.bsky.social are doing to de-spin the lies propagated in the House is fundamental.

They need our support everyday for being in the frontline.

Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 9d

Remember how Jim Jordan was celebrating last week, claiming Google had censored conservatives and his committee uncovered it?

Well, his own committee's documents show he's lying.

open.substack.com/pub/wicziped...

Jim Jordan Claims Google Censored Conservatives. His Own Committee’s Work Shows Otherwise.

Google execs’ interviews before the House Judiciary Committee show no evidence of “censorship” or government coercion - so who’s lying?

open.substack.com

1 22 98

Reposted by Alexandre Alaphilippe

Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 9d

Remember how Jim Jordan was celebrating last week, claiming Google had censored conservatives and his committee uncovered it?

Well, his own committee's documents show he's lying.

open.substack.com/pub/wicziped...

Jim Jordan Claims Google Censored Conservatives. His Own Committee’s Work Shows Otherwise.

Google execs’ interviews before the House Judiciary Committee show no evidence of “censorship” or government coercion - so who’s lying?

open.substack.com

33 260 800

Reposted by Alexandre Alaphilippe

Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 10d

Help us build a new kind of media. Please sign up. More coming soon! @thenerve.news 🙏🙏🙏

www.thenerve.news

The Nerve

Fearless, independent journalism covering culture, politics and tech.

www.thenerve.news

9 190 520