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Mike Ananny

@mikeananny

ananny.org - Media technologies & production cultures - How sociotechnical systems enact theories of press freedom & “the public” - GenAI as a public problem Associate Professor of Communication & Journalism, USC Annenberg Always 🇨🇦

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12.11.2024
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Latest posts by Mike Ananny @mikeananny

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3 Australians Were on U.S. Submarine that Sank an Iranian Warship

Canadians should ask how our various entanglements with the US military square with elbows-up sovereignty…

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/06/w...

06.03.2026 07:39 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

If you took $1 billion and gave it to the endowment of a different small college each day, they could each provide a free college education to several hundred students per year in perpetuity. Instead we are using that money to bomb schools and kill students in Iran, for no clearly stated purpose.

06.03.2026 01:19 👍 1746 🔁 567 💬 20 📌 13
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New tools for understanding AI and learning outcomes OpenAI introduces the Learning Outcomes Measurement Suite to assess AI’s impact on student learning across diverse educational environments over time.

Under no circumstances should we allow OpenAI to become the self-authorized educational research evidenve source that it is trying to be. Vendors must not be research authorities. openai.com/index/unders...

05.03.2026 21:38 👍 77 🔁 24 💬 2 📌 3

If the government gets to decide if you have them, they're not human rights.

05.03.2026 15:04 👍 3609 🔁 869 💬 113 📌 34
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Alberta ‘excessively vulnerable’ to foreign interference, experts warn | CBC News Alberta is not ready to deal with the threat of online disinformation coming from foreign actors in a possible referendum campaign on separation this fall, according to national security experts.

Alberta ‘excessively vulnerable’ to foreign interference, experts warn. Referendum on Alberta's independence from Canada could take place in October www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Find out more at nationalnewswatch.com

04.03.2026 23:08 👍 30 🔁 26 💬 5 📌 5

But my employer’s told me that its partnership with this Department of “War” partner is how I will “empower” myself & my students.

Boy, who’d have predicted such a pickle!🤷‍♂️

www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2025/11/12/u...

04.03.2026 12:55 👍 4 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
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Live Updates: Turkey Says NATO Shot Down Iranian Missile Heading to Turkish Airspace

I guess *this* is how NATO crumbles —

- either member states refuse to join this US folly & Article 5 is moot, or

- they do join in & countries learn that they can exhaust the alliance with member country attacks (NATO DDoS)

Either way, Putin & the pee tape win.

www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03...

04.03.2026 13:23 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Iran war heralds era of AI-powered bombing quicker than ‘speed of thought’ Speed and scale of US military’s AI war planning raises fears human decision-making may be sidelined

Anthropic and Palantir tech was used by the US military to target lethal strikes in Iran www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

04.03.2026 12:57 👍 8 🔁 8 💬 0 📌 1

But my employer’s told me that its partnership with this Department of “War” partner is how I will “empower” myself & my students.

Boy, who’d have predicted such a pickle!🤷‍♂️

www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2025/11/12/u...

04.03.2026 12:55 👍 4 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0

Dave said far more succinctly what I tried to convey here. Not only do I wonder why academics wouldn’t want to do the intellectual labor (why else would we choose this career?), but AI evangelists saying these things are telling on themselves. open.substack.com/pub/miranday...

03.03.2026 20:48 👍 93 🔁 13 💬 4 📌 0

... The point of writing an academic article is not to write an academic article; it is through the research for and writing of an academic article that we are able to think, learn, develop ideas, come up with new ideas, collaborate, inspire, etc. 2/

03.03.2026 15:29 👍 8 🔁 2 💬 2 📌 0

Imagine a world where the terms of this agreement—between two of the world’s most powerful & dangerous organizations—were precisely specified & robustly debated through transparent, accessible, & accountable public processes.

But no.

We get swagger, threats, proprietary systems, & tweets.

28.02.2026 03:34 👍 6 🔁 6 💬 0 📌 0
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And here we have @bobbyrae48.bsky.social caustically subtweeting @mark-carney.bsky.social's dismal statement on Iran this morning.
bobrae48.substack.com/p/impulse-an...

28.02.2026 17:25 👍 17 🔁 6 💬 0 📌 0
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What do AI firms do when users tell chatbots their dark, violent thoughts? Tumbler Ridge tragedy underscores need for regulation, but getting that right can be tricky. Getting it wrong can be dangerous

“Canada is…the only G7 country that has no online harms legislation.

‘We cannot simply leave it to companies, who almost surely are weighing not just privacy & public safety, but also corporate, brand, profit, & reputational considerations,’ [Penny] said.”

www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/1022323...

28.02.2026 12:46 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

This is just such an embarrassing way for a country to fall apart.

28.02.2026 04:34 👍 1006 🔁 133 💬 27 📌 9

Imagine a world where the terms of this agreement—between two of the world’s most powerful & dangerous organizations—were precisely specified & robustly debated through transparent, accessible, & accountable public processes.

But no.

We get swagger, threats, proprietary systems, & tweets.

28.02.2026 03:34 👍 6 🔁 6 💬 0 📌 0
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Federal action on online harms is now a political no brainer February 26, 2026 The most casual observer of public opinion on Ottawa taking action against harmful online content will have long concluded, this ain’t no battle. Canadians categorically sup…

New Léger poll (taken *before* the Tumbler Ridge tragedy) finds that 85% of Canadians agree with the statement “freedom of expression online should not come at the expense of other people’s safety.”

mediapolicy.ca/2026/02/26/f...

26.02.2026 15:56 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

+1 yes

*And* if you’re not interested in developing yourself & your thinking by grappling with messiness of reviewing lit & creating a coherent path through it.

My students sometimes roll their eyes at me when I say it, but I love lit reviews as process of creating & cleaning up a conceptual mess.

24.02.2026 21:27 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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ICE detained a Minnesota teen, labeled him an ‘unaccompanied minor,’ and lost him The Trump administration is apprehending and designating immigrant kids as “unaccompanied,” even as their parents in the U.S. search for them.

ICE agents grabbed a 16-year-old asylum seeker--which they aren't supposed to do

They kept him from his parents -which they aren't supposed to do

They shipped him out of state, to a Christian ministry, which they aren't supposed to do.

Then they *lost* him.

www.startribune.com/how-ice-labe...

22.02.2026 20:40 👍 2174 🔁 1281 💬 64 📌 66
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This is going to be a banger.

Preorder @ceciliarikap.bsky.social

www.versobooks.com/products/325...

21.02.2026 18:14 👍 92 🔁 22 💬 1 📌 3

“Canadians should expect straight answers from media companies about their policies & principles for dealing with American content, Ananny says.

‘Cdn ownership & Cdn control of media needs to be bright-line separated from the U.S; it can’t just be a carrier.’”

Great talk w @nestruck.bsky.social

20.02.2026 23:58 👍 4 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0

There is an increasing number of stories about how Canadian sovereignty is intertwined with US tech infrastructure…

21.02.2026 00:13 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

“Canadians should expect straight answers from media companies about their policies & principles for dealing with American content, Ananny says.

‘Cdn ownership & Cdn control of media needs to be bright-line separated from the U.S; it can’t just be a carrier.’”

Great talk w @nestruck.bsky.social

20.02.2026 23:58 👍 4 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0

“for middle-power countries—states with advanced public sectors and regulatory ambition, but without the scale to dominate global AI markets. For them, sovereignty […] depends on ensuring that AI systems can be integrated, governed, audited, &, if necessary, replaced on national terms.”

20.02.2026 16:47 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
A banner featuring Donald Trump's photo featuring the phrase "Make America Great Again" is hung on the side of the headquarters of the United States Department of Justice in Washington, DC.

A banner featuring Donald Trump's photo featuring the phrase "Make America Great Again" is hung on the side of the headquarters of the United States Department of Justice in Washington, DC.

As @brendannyhan.bsky.social says on repeat, what would you say if you saw it happening in another country?

Source: x.com/HBRabinowitz...

19.02.2026 19:13 👍 277 🔁 103 💬 29 📌 12

Thousands of institutions abandoned programs, ended or rewrote scholarships, closed down clubs and publications, all in pre-emptive compliance.

And you know why?

Mostly because they wanted to do it if they thought they could blame someone else for it.

18.02.2026 23:47 👍 7845 🔁 2532 💬 65 📌 84

“In insisting on a future of perpetual oil‑funded prosperity while railing against transfers & federal authority, movements like the Alberta Prosperity Project offer […] a superficially compelling story that cannot be reconciled with either Canada’s Constitution or the realities of a warming world.”

18.02.2026 21:40 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

But the article also says that democrats are “largely unaffected” so maybe it is the same old story of a kind of (media) power that works only on audiences ideologically prepared to receive a conservative message?

18.02.2026 21:25 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

But I was told by Scholars that algorithms don’t have this power & that filter bubbles don’t exist. 🤔

18.02.2026 21:10 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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Ofelia Torres, teen who fought to have her father released from ICE custody, dies from rare cancer Ofelia Torres, 16, died on Friday from Stage 4 alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare and aggressive form of cancer, her father's lawyer confirmed.

A child dying of cancer spent her final days fighting to free her wrongfully detained father from ICE custody.
 
This comes just weeks after a mother from Maryland was denied the right to be at her son’s side as he died from cancer.
 
Not one dime for this cruelty.

www.cbsnews.com/amp/chicago/...

15.02.2026 21:20 👍 19141 🔁 7407 💬 640 📌 396