Hello! I have a few cool links to share, but first I wanted to add 2 little programming notes. This is my 20th newsletter! The first one went to 38 people back in February, this one will go to just under 500. Thank you for being one of those people
elections
Michelle Obama's barnstorming speech in Chicago on Tuesday night announced that "hope is making a comeback". It made me nostalgic for "hopey-changey" 2008, staying up all night to watch Obama win, intoxicated by optimism, smugness, and aesthetic agreeableness. In hindsight of course it looks
Internet Culture
Are we seeing an unholy alliance between far right radicalisation, and the exhibitionist nihilism that emerged almost as soon as the camera phone did?
Tech policy
Simon Harris has come out swinging for Big Tech; a much needed tone shift at the top of Government. But what happens next will determine if we turn around our reputation in Europe, or descend into a pointless beef with a Silicon Valley manchild
I will be achieving a life goal this evening - playing a small role in RTE's coverage of the UK election count. I'm sharing some talking points I may get to share and am very interested in feedback - you can comment on this post, or
elections
A recent Op-Ed; an overview of the Irish online campaign that looks at what our fracturing internet means for campaigning and politics in 2024 in Ireland and the rest of the world
elections
Happy Voting Eve. A last pre-election round up, bringing together as best anyone can spend data from the Meta and Google ad archives. Plus, a collection of election news covered by other people
A quick update on the investigation shared with you this morning; you can now read TikTok's reply in The Irish Times, who are leading with the story, and I will paste the company's response below too. They are sticking to their line that they ban political
Political Ads
Our investigation shows multiple candidates are running ads on TikTok for Ireland's election, despite the company's claims to block political ads. TikTok is both not enforcing its own policies, AND, failing to comply with EU rules.
Political Ads
The Irish Freedom Party spent €4,100 in the past 3 weeks on YouTube ads, the biggest spenders on YouTube ads this election.
As I work through more ads and spending data (coming soon), I wanted to share 4 brilliant resources that have really impressed me this week. 1) A dashboard of all local election candidates The very good people over at Women for Election have built an easy to navigate dashboard showing
We last looked at online ad spending by MEP candidates two weeks ago. Since then campaigning has ramped up, and we are starting to see patterns emerging that tell us about party strategies. It also sparks lots of questions about the role of money in Irish elections, something we ordinarily