Newsletter

Why is that random controversy blowing up on social media? Is it even real?

Agents of Influence is my newsletter about the people and systems shaping what we believe online: influencers, algorithms, crowds, platforms, power brokers, and institutions.

It's for occasional short essays, quick explainers, and notes on current controversies. One post might break down an influence operation or new platform policy; another might cover how AI is supercharging scams. Sometimes I’m the analyst; sometimes I’m the case study.

It's where I publish quickly and more directly than I can in media outlets or books.

No paywall, no spam, no sponsors. Just updates when there’s something worth saying.

Recent posts

  1. How to Build an Election Rumor: A Mad Libs Guide to Manufacturing a Conspiracy Theory

    Election rumors run on a template. How the "color revolution" theory and DataRepublican's "Democracy Files" fit it, plus a Mad Libs game to write your own.

  2. I Built an AI Bot to Fact-Check the Midterms. Here's What I've Learned.

    Many websites hate bots, consensus has its limits, and the six AI notewriters dominating Community Notes are run by X itself. With the midterms approaching, I've been spending most of

  3. Suddenly, Foreign Influence Research Is Good Again

    What X’s Chinese bot takedown tells us about the counter-disinformation infrastructure we dismantled   On Monday I wrote about Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers’ extraordinary effort to leak documents

  4. When Matt Taibbi Met Mike Benz

    To mark the paperback of Invisible Rulers, I’m releasing audio from a Twitter Space in which Matt Taibbi meets then-unknown political operative named Mike Benz. It is the origin story of the “censorship industrial complex”.

  5. Trump is going to lie to you tonight. An old guide to propaganda shows how to spot the red flags.

    Trump is expected to revive his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, using selectively declassified intelligence as “receipts.” Here’s how to spot the tricks used to sell that story.

  6. Keep the Cat Memes Flowing: Interpretive Polarization and the Strategy Behind One of 2024’s Most Effective Political Narratives

    JD Vance admitted he promoted the debunked "eating the pets" claim because he had to "create stories" to get media attention. This essay explores how political narratives are intentionally engineered to outlast factual corrections.
Browse the full archive →