Russia enters Viktor Orban's election campaign, providing consultants who will flood social media with messages designed, ironically, to frame Orbán, a Russia puppet, as "the only candidate who can keep Hungary sovereign"
From @financialtimes.com
giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
Today's evacuation orders in Beirut displace 100,000s - including elderly people, children, people with disabilities, etc. etc., all having to leave in a hurry with no idea what will happen to their homes. This kind of mass forced displacement is illegal under international law.
💪👏👏👏
Over 400 scientists have signed a letter calling for a moratorium on the deployment of age-verification technologies. The letter suggests the widespread deployment of untested AV tech is making the internet less safe.
www.politico.eu/article/age-...
BREAKING: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been killed and his body has been found, reports Reuters, citing Israeli media reports.
🔴 LIVE updates: aje.news/s9152d
The only way to respond to Trumps terrorists.
www.facebook.com/share/r/14aC...
The Epstein files grant us a rare glimpse into the kind of machinations that must be happening all the time. As @bylinetimes.bsky.social reveals, Trump's fixer, Steve Bannon, helped Boris Johnson overthrow Theresa May. Blatant foreign interference in our politics. 🧵
bylinetimes.com/2026/02/16/b...
BREAKING: Peter Mandelson has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, the Metropolitan Police has said
In 2015 the Royals were already threatening media outlets and victims re exposing #Andrew They knew a decade ago.
www.theguardian.com/media/2019/n...
Here's the documentary that 1.1 million Hungarians have watched over the past week, documenting the damage that Viktor Orban's regime has done to health, education and public transportation in Hungary
with English subtitles:
youtu.be/9NQEcLIiOpM?...
Love this headline. 🎉😂
“No footage of Mr. Martinez’s killing has surfaced.” So the only evidence is from ICE.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/20/u...
The political effects of X's feed algorithm https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10098-2 Received: 16 December 2024 Accepted: 4 January 2026 Published online: 18 February 2026 Open access • Check for updates Germain Gauthier,5, Roland Hodler?5, Philine Widmer35 & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya3,4,5 m Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects'. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk's platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects. Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users' feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X's algorithm has persistent effects on users' current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.
A new paper shows that less than 2 months of exposure to Twitter’s algorithmic feed significantly shifts people’s political views to the right.
Moving from chronological feed to the algorithmic feed also increases engagement.
This is one of the most concerning papers I’ve read in awhile.
And Mandelson?
Powerful,uplifting read- in times when it’s needed. Thanks again to the ppl of #Minnesota
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/o...
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NEW: Read this terrific piece @virginiaheffernan.bsky.social for @thenerve.news in which she unpicks Edge.org, the hugely influential 'salon' funded by Epstein & threaded through with race science & eugenics.
1/
www.thenerve.news/p/epstein-bi...
Rubio just made a speech to the European defense community in Munich that did not mention Ukraine. Or democracy. Or US business deals with Russia. Or the administration's plans to support the European far right. But there were lots of nice words about our common civilization.
Sean Canney on @newstalkfm.bsky.social in his role as min of state for road safety.
www.irishtimes.com/news/politic...
I cannot wait to see the hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating against this in EUrope's streets.... 🙄
“The media are 50% of any problem, and the story most of it loves to tell is of one bad apple. Heaven forfend that we see the systemic problems.”
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
The so-called "pro-life," "pro-family" party is perfectly fine with an 18-month-old child almost dying because of the deplorable conditions at this detention center. Hello?
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/toddler-hospitalized-dilley-ice-detention-rcna257912
Not the same issue, but do we have an empty homes tax? I have some very nice second home neighbours in Ballybunion, but I do find it wild how many homes there are in the village empty the majority of the time... In a housing crisis
www.thejournal.ie/short-term-l... Including planning permission amnesty
Hot topic for discussion of the Paddy’s Day visit. No?
‘Demand from large energy users, particularly data centres, is singled out as a big barrier. The committee warns that rising electricity demand from these users is preventing renewable generation projects.”
www.irishtimes.com/environment/...
