Sohan Dsouza
@sohandsouza.info
🥼 @MPIB-Berlin.bsky.social;
📚 computational social science, disinformation/polarization, crowdsourcing, OSINT;
🎓 @MIT.edu @MediaLab.bsky.social, @DFRLab.bsky.social #DigitalSherlocks;
📍 London, England;
https://www.sohandsouza.info
📚 computational social science, disinformation/polarization, crowdsourcing, OSINT;
🎓 @MIT.edu @MediaLab.bsky.social, @DFRLab.bsky.social #DigitalSherlocks;
📍 London, England;
https://www.sohandsouza.info
Pinned
Sohan Dsouza
@sohandsouza.info
· Sep 26
🇬🇧🕵️🧑💻🧑🏫 The British Computer Society has published my recent presentation for them in London, on my investigations of international influence operations and misinformation spread affecting the UK, and OSINT/SOCMINT basics.
▶️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBhH...
#disinfo #misinfo #infops #OSINT #SOCMINT #UK
▶️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBhH...
#disinfo #misinfo #infops #OSINT #SOCMINT #UK
Reposted by Sohan Dsouza
Please Donate to the Internet Archive. $25 helps.... a lot.
Useful to Journalists,
Useful to Students,
Useful to more than 2 million people a day.
Collections growing at 150TBytes/day
@internetarchive
archive.org/donate
www.cnn.com/2025/11/16/b...
Useful to Journalists,
Useful to Students,
Useful to more than 2 million people a day.
Collections growing at 150TBytes/day
@internetarchive
archive.org/donate
www.cnn.com/2025/11/16/b...
November 29, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Please Donate to the Internet Archive. $25 helps.... a lot.
Useful to Journalists,
Useful to Students,
Useful to more than 2 million people a day.
Collections growing at 150TBytes/day
@internetarchive
archive.org/donate
www.cnn.com/2025/11/16/b...
Useful to Journalists,
Useful to Students,
Useful to more than 2 million people a day.
Collections growing at 150TBytes/day
@internetarchive
archive.org/donate
www.cnn.com/2025/11/16/b...
🇬🇧🇺🇸🇧🇷🗞🎙 At last week's UK Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee session on "disinformation diplomacy", and the message was clear: malign actors' tactics are evolving fast—from Russia’s LLM grooming to China’s increasingly AI-boosted operators—and we're getting more vulnerable. 🧵
November 29, 2025 at 4:06 PM
🇬🇧🇺🇸🇧🇷🗞🎙 At last week's UK Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee session on "disinformation diplomacy", and the message was clear: malign actors' tactics are evolving fast—from Russia’s LLM grooming to China’s increasingly AI-boosted operators—and we're getting more vulnerable. 🧵
Reposted by Sohan Dsouza
We found:
♦️ Dozens of political party pages actively enrolled for revenue redistribution or other monetization services.
♦️ Ads being displayed on political party content
♦️ Various loopholes that can lead political parties to receive contributions violating applicable Campaign Finance Laws.
♦️ Dozens of political party pages actively enrolled for revenue redistribution or other monetization services.
♦️ Ads being displayed on political party content
♦️ Various loopholes that can lead political parties to receive contributions violating applicable Campaign Finance Laws.
November 28, 2025 at 4:08 PM
We found:
♦️ Dozens of political party pages actively enrolled for revenue redistribution or other monetization services.
♦️ Ads being displayed on political party content
♦️ Various loopholes that can lead political parties to receive contributions violating applicable Campaign Finance Laws.
♦️ Dozens of political party pages actively enrolled for revenue redistribution or other monetization services.
♦️ Ads being displayed on political party content
♦️ Various loopholes that can lead political parties to receive contributions violating applicable Campaign Finance Laws.
Reposted by Sohan Dsouza
🚨 NEW INVESTIGATION - How Facebook Offers Monetization Services to Political Parties
Our new research looks at how political parties are turning to social media #monetization as a new source of revenue and financial contributions - and explores implications for #BrandSafety and #Election integrity
Our new research looks at how political parties are turning to social media #monetization as a new source of revenue and financial contributions - and explores implications for #BrandSafety and #Election integrity
November 28, 2025 at 4:08 PM
🚨 NEW INVESTIGATION - How Facebook Offers Monetization Services to Political Parties
Our new research looks at how political parties are turning to social media #monetization as a new source of revenue and financial contributions - and explores implications for #BrandSafety and #Election integrity
Our new research looks at how political parties are turning to social media #monetization as a new source of revenue and financial contributions - and explores implications for #BrandSafety and #Election integrity
Reposted by Sohan Dsouza
This is important for all platform researchers! Please read and sign the OPEN LETTER to the EU Commission and share widely in your networks!
We've published an Open Letter urging EU policymakers to reject the Digital Omnibus' proposed Amendment to Article 12(5) GDPR, which would undermine citizens' data access rights & the researchers who depend on them for #DataDonation research.
Read & sign: shorturl.at/e1mr4 - your signature matters.
Read & sign: shorturl.at/e1mr4 - your signature matters.
November 25, 2025 at 11:08 AM
This is important for all platform researchers! Please read and sign the OPEN LETTER to the EU Commission and share widely in your networks!
Reposted by Sohan Dsouza
Applications to host a 2026 Summer Institute in Computational Social Science are due Sunday (December 1st) by 5pm. Don't forget to check out our new "Tech for Open Minds" program too. Apply here: sicss.io/host
Host a Partner Location
sicss.io
November 28, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Applications to host a 2026 Summer Institute in Computational Social Science are due Sunday (December 1st) by 5pm. Don't forget to check out our new "Tech for Open Minds" program too. Apply here: sicss.io/host
This was all a farce from the get-go. What we need is no ban, and (identity-trace-useful, at-scale accessible) transparency on all ads/boosts and accounts/pages.
Meta’s “political ad ban” in action: a Nazi ad calling for protest & Nazi symbols is classified as not political & still running (has been for days).
The consequences of the self-imposed ban were clear from the start: bad actors continue, Meta profits, and those following the rules are punished.
The consequences of the self-imposed ban were clear from the start: bad actors continue, Meta profits, and those following the rules are punished.
November 28, 2025 at 4:39 PM
This was all a farce from the get-go. What we need is no ban, and (identity-trace-useful, at-scale accessible) transparency on all ads/boosts and accounts/pages.
📚🧑🏫🧠🤖 Complex systems researcher, entrepreneur, and author César Hidalgo introducing his book "The Infinite Alphabet", on the shifting nature of knowledge—and its particularly curious characteristics in our time of increased super-specialisation and technological augmentation.
November 28, 2025 at 3:15 PM
📚🧑🏫🧠🤖 Complex systems researcher, entrepreneur, and author César Hidalgo introducing his book "The Infinite Alphabet", on the shifting nature of knowledge—and its particularly curious characteristics in our time of increased super-specialisation and technological augmentation.
«The CPS seems determined to establish a blasphemy law by the back door. Their approach effectively treats those who are targeted with violence for offending religious sensibilities as the wrongdoers. That is an alarming inversion of justice.»
Crown Prosecution Service challenges quashing of koran-burning conviction www.secularism.org.uk/news/2025/11...
CPS challenges quashing of Quran-burning conviction
NSS: Guilty verdict would echo "blasphemy law" and establish "extremist's veto". Read More »
www.secularism.org.uk
November 28, 2025 at 3:02 PM
«The CPS seems determined to establish a blasphemy law by the back door. Their approach effectively treats those who are targeted with violence for offending religious sensibilities as the wrongdoers. That is an alarming inversion of justice.»
Aaaaaaand there it is!
And Remigration, a common political stance from the far-right, linked to the conspiracy theory of the "Great Replacement", enters once more into governments' policies.
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Trump Demands ‘Reverse Migration’ in Push for Sweeping Crackdown
President Donald Trump called for “reverse migration” in the US as he outlined a further crackdown on immigration following the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington.
www.bloomberg.com
November 28, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Aaaaaaand there it is!
Reposted by Sohan Dsouza
A video shared with claims it shows a UK teacher telling children to do Islamic prayers and chant “Allahu Akbar” isn’t real. It was almost certainly made using artificial intelligence.
Fake video of UK teacher telling children to bow and chant ‘Allahu Akbar’ circulates online – Full Fact
A clip shared with claims it shows a UK teacher ‘indoctrinating’ children in Islam isn’t real and was almost certainly made using artificial intelligence.
fullfact.org
November 17, 2025 at 7:00 PM
A video shared with claims it shows a UK teacher telling children to do Islamic prayers and chant “Allahu Akbar” isn’t real. It was almost certainly made using artificial intelligence.
Reposted by Sohan Dsouza
Social media posts have claimed that Tesco is not celebrating Christmas, because it has described one of its trees as an “evergreen” tree.
This is misleading—the retailer sells other artificial trees labelled as Christmas trees.
This is misleading—the retailer sells other artificial trees labelled as Christmas trees.
Tesco hasn’t rebranded all its Christmas trees to ‘evergreen trees’ – Full Fact
Claims that Tesco is not celebrating Christmas because it is selling an “evergreen” tree are missing context.
fullfact.org
November 27, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Social media posts have claimed that Tesco is not celebrating Christmas, because it has described one of its trees as an “evergreen” tree.
This is misleading—the retailer sells other artificial trees labelled as Christmas trees.
This is misleading—the retailer sells other artificial trees labelled as Christmas trees.
«This is exactly the kind of coordinated inauthentic behavior that trust & safety teams were built to identify and address. Not to “censor” ideological viewpoints, but to surface when what looks like organic American political discourse is actually foreign actors gaming the system for profit.»
X’s New Feature Reveals Why Trust & Safety Work Was Never About The ‘Censorship Industrial Complex’
For the last few years, Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and their allies have spent considerable energy attacking both academic researchers studying disinformation and the trust & safety teams…
For the last few years, Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and their allies have spent considerable energy attacking both academic researchers studying disinformation and the trust & safety teams…
X’s New Feature Reveals Why Trust & Safety Work Was Never About The ‘Censorship Industrial Complex’
For the last few years, Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and their allies have spent considerable energy attacking both academic researchers studying disinformation and the trust & safety teams at social media platforms working to identify and remove coordinated inauthentic behavior—particularly foreign influence operations. They've insisted that any attempt to study and limit such operations is actually just "censorship" with various forms of cover, whether academic or operational.
www.techdirt.com
November 25, 2025 at 9:38 AM
«This is exactly the kind of coordinated inauthentic behavior that trust & safety teams were built to identify and address. Not to “censor” ideological viewpoints, but to surface when what looks like organic American political discourse is actually foreign actors gaming the system for profit.»
Reposted by Sohan Dsouza
X now reveals the locations of user accounts, pulling back the curtain on the scale and scope of manipulation and “coordinated inauthentic behaviour” on the platform. At the least, I hope it helps us reevaluate platforms as “neutral” infrastructure.
www.businessinsider.com/x-shows-loca...
www.businessinsider.com/x-shows-loca...
X erupts after the platform reveals the locations where accounts are based
X, formerly Twitter, launched a feature that shows accounts' locations, in an effort to promote transparency.
www.businessinsider.com
November 24, 2025 at 10:25 PM
X now reveals the locations of user accounts, pulling back the curtain on the scale and scope of manipulation and “coordinated inauthentic behaviour” on the platform. At the least, I hope it helps us reevaluate platforms as “neutral” infrastructure.
www.businessinsider.com/x-shows-loca...
www.businessinsider.com/x-shows-loca...
Reposted by Sohan Dsouza
🚀 We’re hiring!
Want to make a difference & contribute to high-impact projects? Join our team as:
🔹 Research Portfolio Lead
🔹 Researcher
🔹 Senior Policy Officer or
🔹 Communications & Public Affairs Coordinator
Learn more about all available roles: www.nuffieldfoundation.org/about/careers
Want to make a difference & contribute to high-impact projects? Join our team as:
🔹 Research Portfolio Lead
🔹 Researcher
🔹 Senior Policy Officer or
🔹 Communications & Public Affairs Coordinator
Learn more about all available roles: www.nuffieldfoundation.org/about/careers
Careers | About | Nuffield Foundation
Start your career at the Nuffield Foundation in research, programme management, communications and more. Search Nuffield Foundation job vacancies.
www.nuffieldfoundation.org
November 21, 2025 at 11:51 AM
🚀 We’re hiring!
Want to make a difference & contribute to high-impact projects? Join our team as:
🔹 Research Portfolio Lead
🔹 Researcher
🔹 Senior Policy Officer or
🔹 Communications & Public Affairs Coordinator
Learn more about all available roles: www.nuffieldfoundation.org/about/careers
Want to make a difference & contribute to high-impact projects? Join our team as:
🔹 Research Portfolio Lead
🔹 Researcher
🔹 Senior Policy Officer or
🔹 Communications & Public Affairs Coordinator
Learn more about all available roles: www.nuffieldfoundation.org/about/careers
Reposted by Sohan Dsouza
New from 404 Media: X has shown where accounts are actually being run from, revealing many MAGA accounts are actually grifters in Eastern Europe, Asia, etc. But the situation is much, much worse. Entire guides specifically on how to squeeze US audiences with AI.
www.404media.co/americas-pol...
www.404media.co/americas-pol...
America’s Polarization Has Become the World's Side Hustle
The 'psyops' revealed by X are entirely the fault of the perverse incentives created by social media monetization programs.
www.404media.co
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 PM
New from 404 Media: X has shown where accounts are actually being run from, revealing many MAGA accounts are actually grifters in Eastern Europe, Asia, etc. But the situation is much, much worse. Entire guides specifically on how to squeeze US audiences with AI.
www.404media.co/americas-pol...
www.404media.co/americas-pol...
«The Macedonian teenagers didn’t care about the politics. The American right, especially the emerging MAGA ecosystem, was simply a dream customer: highly engaged, highly inflamed, and extremely willing to click through to garbage sites that paid out ad revenue.»
By me: a brief history of foreign agitators pretending to be Americans over the last decade, with most out to make a buck monetizing the culture war 💸(politics matter less than you think), and what X’s new feature shows…
open.substack.com/pub/agentsof...
open.substack.com/pub/agentsof...
On the Internet No One Knows You’re a “MAGA patriot” in Lagos
On X's new location feature...
open.substack.com
November 24, 2025 at 8:01 PM
«The Macedonian teenagers didn’t care about the politics. The American right, especially the emerging MAGA ecosystem, was simply a dream customer: highly engaged, highly inflamed, and extremely willing to click through to garbage sites that paid out ad revenue.»
«This is X in 2025: Potentially fake accounts crying at other potentially fake accounts that they aren’t real, all while refusing to acknowledge that they themselves aren’t who they say they are—a Russian nesting doll of bullshit.»
#Xitter #transparency #circus #inauthentic #platforms
#Xitter #transparency #circus #inauthentic #platforms
I wrote about the fake account blowup on X this weekend. A genuine post-truth nightmare and proof that these companies have polluted their platforms so thoroughly and traded reality for profit that they've undermined the very idea of what the internet is supposed to be.
That MAGA Account Might Be a Troll From Pakistan
How X blew up its own platform with a new location feature
www.theatlantic.com
November 24, 2025 at 5:45 PM
«This is X in 2025: Potentially fake accounts crying at other potentially fake accounts that they aren’t real, all while refusing to acknowledge that they themselves aren’t who they say they are—a Russian nesting doll of bullshit.»
#Xitter #transparency #circus #inauthentic #platforms
#Xitter #transparency #circus #inauthentic #platforms
Reposted by Sohan Dsouza
Reposted by Sohan Dsouza
It doesn’t need conspiracy or coordination. The incentives alone are sufficient. The platform pays the public to perform, and the performance produces the disorder.
November 23, 2025 at 8:15 PM
It doesn’t need conspiracy or coordination. The incentives alone are sufficient. The platform pays the public to perform, and the performance produces the disorder.
Reposted by Sohan Dsouza
Even sincere actors get pulled into the same incentive field. Their beliefs may be genuine, but the attention economy doesn’t distinguish. To be heard, they must compete with the grifters on the grifters’ terms.
November 23, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Even sincere actors get pulled into the same incentive field. Their beliefs may be genuine, but the attention economy doesn’t distinguish. To be heard, they must compete with the grifters on the grifters’ terms.
Reposted by Sohan Dsouza
NEWS: I spent the past 24 hours going through major MAGA accounts on Twitter, and a bombshell development has become clear: most of the right-wing ecosphere is being fed propaganda from foreign actors.
This impacts elections. This impacts discourse. This is major. Subscribe to support my work:
This impacts elections. This impacts discourse. This is major. Subscribe to support my work:
NEWS: Major MAGA Accounts on Twitter Exposed as Foreign Actors
A stunning development over the past 24 hours.
open.substack.com
November 23, 2025 at 7:38 PM
NEWS: I spent the past 24 hours going through major MAGA accounts on Twitter, and a bombshell development has become clear: most of the right-wing ecosphere is being fed propaganda from foreign actors.
This impacts elections. This impacts discourse. This is major. Subscribe to support my work:
This impacts elections. This impacts discourse. This is major. Subscribe to support my work:
Reposted by Sohan Dsouza
It produces a performative ecosystem. Actors aren’t communicating; they’re staging provocations for yield. The result is disordered discourse: signals detached from truth, identity shaped by escalation, and a feedback loop where the performance eclipses reality itself.
November 23, 2025 at 8:06 PM
It produces a performative ecosystem. Actors aren’t communicating; they’re staging provocations for yield. The result is disordered discourse: signals detached from truth, identity shaped by escalation, and a feedback loop where the performance eclipses reality itself.
Turns out this is another replycator grifter account, also based in India.
The original post, from a day earlier, content of which they copied and posted to boost engagement is at [ x.com/EricLDaugh/s... ].
More about replycators on X at my Substack at [ sohandsouza.substack.com/p/spammy-vib... ].
The original post, from a day earlier, content of which they copied and posted to boost engagement is at [ x.com/EricLDaugh/s... ].
More about replycators on X at my Substack at [ sohandsouza.substack.com/p/spammy-vib... ].
November 24, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Turns out this is another replycator grifter account, also based in India.
The original post, from a day earlier, content of which they copied and posted to boost engagement is at [ x.com/EricLDaugh/s... ].
More about replycators on X at my Substack at [ sohandsouza.substack.com/p/spammy-vib... ].
The original post, from a day earlier, content of which they copied and posted to boost engagement is at [ x.com/EricLDaugh/s... ].
More about replycators on X at my Substack at [ sohandsouza.substack.com/p/spammy-vib... ].
Not just more effective, but legitimate.
Free societies penalise harmful *conduct*, not wrongthink, as seen in the existing MB bans coming almost solely from autocratic regimes that suppress all dissent.
Then again, given the sweeping ban on "antifa", I don't have high hopes for nuance from the US.
Free societies penalise harmful *conduct*, not wrongthink, as seen in the existing MB bans coming almost solely from autocratic regimes that suppress all dissent.
Then again, given the sweeping ban on "antifa", I don't have high hopes for nuance from the US.
A More Effective Approach to Countering the Muslim Brotherhood. The Trump administration should focus more narrowly on the national security threats presented by individual Brotherhood branches and organizations, especially those funding Hamas
www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analy...
www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analy...
A More Effective Approach to Countering the Muslim Brotherhood
Instead of pinning a terrorist designation on the entire group, the Trump administration should focus more narrowly on the national security threats presented by individual Brotherhood branches and or...
www.washingtoninstitute.org
November 24, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Not just more effective, but legitimate.
Free societies penalise harmful *conduct*, not wrongthink, as seen in the existing MB bans coming almost solely from autocratic regimes that suppress all dissent.
Then again, given the sweeping ban on "antifa", I don't have high hopes for nuance from the US.
Free societies penalise harmful *conduct*, not wrongthink, as seen in the existing MB bans coming almost solely from autocratic regimes that suppress all dissent.
Then again, given the sweeping ban on "antifa", I don't have high hopes for nuance from the US.