According to Robert Sutton, the problem of “disrespectful, demeaning, and downright mean-spirited behavior” is “worse than ever.”
The Musk Bump: Quantifying the rise in hate speech under Elon Musk
Since his takeover of Twitter Elon Musk has repeatedly promised to clamp down on hate speech while taking unilateral policy decisions, such as reinstating abusive accounts, that encourage the spread of hate speech on his platforms.
[52] Menschplaining: Three Ideas for Civil Criticism
As bloggers, commentators, reviewers, and editors, we often criticize the work of fellow academics. In this post I share three ideas to be more civil and persuasive when doing so. But first: should…
The Retweeting Class
I have often found myself confounded by the behaviour of some people who seem impervious to reality — like the people still on X today. Here, I try to understand what grounds their epistemology and its consequences, and what that means for the rest of us. Being committed to a better future is where genuine seriousness is, and that seriousness can only be approached in a spirit of embodied, determined, relentless hope.
The Slander Industry (Published 2021)
Who makes money from destroying reputations online?
Cory Doctorow on Enshittification, with danah boyd and Lee Vinsel
Monica Lewinsky: ‘The shame sticks to you like tar’
Nearly 20 years ago, Monica Lewinsky found herself at the heart of a political storm. Now she’s turned that dark time into a force for good
from 'ermahgerd' to 'muahaha:' how millenial humor got so cringe
I promise I’m not here to tease you. At least not before you've had your coffee xx
Bill Ackman on Twitter / X
Almost nothing makes my blood boil more than when a large powerful institution unfairly destroys someone’s reputation, and its principal reason for doing so is to minimize bad publicity in an effort to protect its own ‘reputation.’ Sadly, I have seen this occur in many academic…— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) January 2, 2026
Well-intentioned obscenity
An LLM lied about me at the office and I'm cranky about it. That interaction makes me think a lot about how LLMs are becoming normalized, though, and what we're looking at in terms of their role in human-to-human interactions in the future.
Jason Arday: We Must Rage – Rage Against the Journalism of Cruelty
The death of the academic shows the casual conversion of humiliation into entertainment by a media running on monetised hate and cruelty
Bluesky is under fire for allowing usernames with racial slurs
Bluesky’s moderation woes continue as users threaten to leave the site in protest of its failure to flag slurs in account usernames. Many users — particularly Black users — are frustrated that Bluesky hasn’t apologized for allowing racial slurs to slip through its moderation tools even though they violate the platform’s community guidelines. “Our community guidelines published yesterday reflect our values for a healthy community, and we’re working on becoming better stewards every day,” Bluesky CEO Jay Graber said in a post on Saturday.
Norms of behavior? Shielding proven misconduct? Just because you burry it @maastrichtu.bsky.social, does not change the truth! Well, he (the dean) partly succeeded with his threats because my UK university indeed dismissed me.
Just a professor standing in front of BlueSky demoralized because exams my students used to get a mean of 83% on prior to 2020 are now failed in large numbers. It seems that their ability to APPLY concepts to new contexts/domains has all but disappeared. I love these students & I am worried.
