I know many of you already know this because it’s obvious but you can absolutely take a survey of an opinion desk’s output over time and pretty accurately surmise the views—or at least the intentions—of the people who are in charge of deciding what gets published. I thought we were all adults here
In 2022 I started tracking changes in how news outlets were describing trans people, and set up a bot to record every article pushed to the Google News index based on a handful of search phrases, including “biological sex” in both the US and UK. The amount in 2023 alone was absolutely staggering.
Waves hand in direction of absolute mass of research demonstrating that "neutral" media provides the launching point legitimising far right attitudes, but you know, the critics must be illiterate www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Lol, then do this type of analysis and show the haters they are wrong. As a scholar of ideology and partisanship, it was easy to notice the shift rightward by the NYT around a decade ago. How journalists involved in the process pretend that shift didn't happen is beyond me.
There is still one month left to apply to the WhoGov Mini-Conference on Political Elites. The deadline is the 1st of April.
It takes place in Oslo, August 20-21st, 2026. We welcome research on political elites broadly understood.
Call is found here : bit.ly/whogovminico...
"Trying to compete with Reform not only feels inauthentic... but a betrayal of what Labour is supposed to represent. We must address the concerns and fears of voters, not play on them."
Damning stuff from Sadiq Khan
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Wars can only be declared by Congress.
Taxes can only be levied by Congress.
Spending can only be appropriated by Congress.
Laws can only be passed by Congress.
Any President who refuses to work with Congress is an enemy of the Constitution and the rule of law.
Can’t blame this on Morgan McSweeney.
Throwing virtually every minority groups under the bus and making the policies the centre of media comms kinda crowds out news on these fronts.
Suspect May is going to be a happy time to be Green. Or Plaid. Or SNP. Or LD. Or anyone on the left except Labour really
The Iranian regime is objectively hideous. It murders & incarcerates innocent people, threatens & attacks sovereign neighbours, routinely breaks international law, outlaws dissent & crushes free speech.
Can you see the problem with *Donald Trump & Benjamin Netanyahu* leading the attack on them?
the point is that many didn't survive or would not have even sought out treatment for various reasons. It is a selection effect, a type of common error in poorly designed research. Sometimes also referred to as survivorship bias
Worth reading in full. The UK is for the present operating outside of what could be considered to be upholding human rights and legal norms on trans people
May is not going to be kind month to KS and the Labour party given this language.
Just watching as Scottish Labour throw Starmer under the bus today. They're in serious trouble this May.
How do they study the control group then? Those that were not prescribed and didn't make it into adulthood?
arxiv.org/abs/2602.14740 for kenneth's paper
Yeah....
Anecdotally, this has been the feeling for months now. People were so critical of Sarwar for distancing himself from Starmer, but I think that was a pure survival attempt for a party that looked like it had such good chances only a year or two ago.
This will not age well. From my experience wit FOI requests and the UK civil service, they are not prepared to answer even the most simplistic questions about the use of AI much less have a thoughtful approach to mitigating AI's biases. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Equality and Human Rights Commission Dear Your Freedom of Information Request FOI Reference: 15238932 Date: 16 February 2026 Thank you for your request, detailed below, which we received on 19 January 2026. "1) Does the EHRC hold minutes for meetings with any trans-led or trans- focused groups (excluding general LGBTQI+ groups) in the last 5 years. For clarity, these could include but are not limited to: - TransActual - Translucent/Steph's Place - Scottish Trans - Trans legal project - Trans Advocacy and Complaints Collective - Trans Safety Network - Trans Solidarity Alliance - Trans Resistance Network - Trans Exile Network If so, could you a) break down how many sets of minutes were recorded per year. (Here 1 "set of minutes" means "minutes for 1 meeting") And b) name which trans-led or trans-focused organisation these are with." This request is being handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Response Following a search of our records, we have determined that the information you have requested is not held by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. While the Commission regularly engages with a wide range of stakeholders, including trans-led and trans-focussed civil society organisations where relevant to our work, we do not hold any formal minutes of meetings with the organisations listed in your request within the timeframe specified. T: 0161 829 8100 E: foi@equalityhumanrights.com Arndale House, The Arndale Centre Manchester, M4 3AQ equalityhumanrights.com T: 0161 829 8100 E: foi@equalityhumanrights.com Arndale House, The Arndale Centre Manchester, M4 3AQ equalityhumanrights.com
FOI reveals the EHRC holds zero minutes of meetings with trans-led organisations in the past 5 years.
This is the UK’s 'equality' regulator.
Trans voices are not important enough for the EHRC to keep a record of what was said. This should be a headline in all the papers.
Also a great opportunity for non-academics, 2 practical data skills courses this June, designed for analysts, policy professionals & anyone working w/ complex information. Text analysis & ML (1–5 June) + Social Network Analysis (8–12 June). Discounts for govt & nonprofits. #civservice #upskilling
Two back-to-back methods intensives at @strathclyde.bsky.social this June — quantitative text analysis (1–5 June, Glasgow) and social network analysis (8–12 June, online). Great for social scientists wanting to level up their computational skills. #polisci #CSS #rstats
Or interested in how networks shape politics, organisations & society? This online short course at Strathclyde covers SNA theory, visualisation & real-world applications. 8–12 June. mycll.strath.ac.uk/View-Class/rdid/72/cr/5287 #socialnetworks #CSS
I'm teaching a 5-day intensive on quantitative text analysis & ML for social scientists at Strathclyde, 1–5 June. We cover dictionary methods, topic models, scaling, and text classification in R. Come learn with me! mycll.strath.ac.uk/View-Class/rdid/72/cr/4913
Interested in learning more advanced approaches to text analysis, machine learning or network analysis this summer? The University of Strathclyde @strathpolir.bsky.social is offering successive methods classes this June.
Vote Green and give this bigoted fascist, and the bigoted fascists-lite in the Labour Party, a reality check
When Musk said the "cumulative sum of human knowledge has been exhausted" for training AI, what he was really saying is that he would not pay for digitisation, and had reached the limits of useful data he could scrape for free. The GenAI house is built on sand.
The dude whose company, thanks to Labour, will run our military analytics and to whom Wes Streeting is giving our personal healthcare data.
We‘re very excited for the next edition of the Summer School for Women* in Political Methodology in Mannheim! ✨
Join us and apply until 1 March!
More info in @melinscribe.bsky.social‘s thread below and here: summerschoolwpm.org
Application form: sosci.sowi.uni-mannheim.de/wpm/
