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floreani.bsky.social
samantha floreani
@floreani.bsky.social
1.2K followers 640 following 280 posts
digital rights advocate / writer / PhD candidate researching tech + housing justice 🏠 surveillance isn't safety xoxo

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floreani.bsky.social
samantha floreani @floreani.bsky.social · Jun 18
I’m researching ways that digital technologies in Australia's private rental sector are impacting renters and housing justice.

I’m looking for more interview participants. If you are a renter and have experience using ‘RentTech’ - I want to speak with you!

More info and EOI here:
The Machine-Readable Renter — Samantha Floreani
Participants needed! Are you a renter in Australia? Have you ever used tech to find and apply for a home, log maintenance, or pay rent? I want to speak with you!
www.samanthafloreani.com
floreani.bsky.social
hey Victorian renters! if you've used 'RentTech' (think online application platforms, rent payment apps, property management portals), please spend ~5 minutes to share your experience in this survey to contribute to important @cprc-research.bsky.social research: cprc.limesurvey.net/594888?lang=en
December 18, 2025 at 11:51 PM
Reposted by samantha floreani
jathansadowski.com
I wrote about Kalshi, prediction markets, and the vision of total financialization by turning every opinion into a tradable assets www.fastcompany.com/91457404/kal...
The Kalshi-fication of everything
The predictions platform is revealing what a world of total financialization will look like.
www.fastcompany.com
December 11, 2025 at 11:05 PM
Reposted by samantha floreani
lindamciver.adsei.org
"we’re trapped in a nightmare in which even the act of hating AI-generated content only serves to fuel it"
oof. @floreani.bsky.social on the money, as usual!
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Becoming an AI-detective is a job I never wanted and wish I could quit | Samantha Floreani
My social media feed is now a hellish stream of puerile AI slop. Am I stubborn to want to hang on to reality?
www.theguardian.com
December 12, 2025 at 12:10 AM
floreani.bsky.social
Are you a renter, and have you ever had a property manager use a 360 camera when conducting routine inspections or condition reports? I really, really wanna talk with you. Get in touch!
floreani.bsky.social samantha floreani @floreani.bsky.social · Jun 18
I’m researching ways that digital technologies in Australia's private rental sector are impacting renters and housing justice.

I’m looking for more interview participants. If you are a renter and have experience using ‘RentTech’ - I want to speak with you!

More info and EOI here:
The Machine-Readable Renter — Samantha Floreani
Participants needed! Are you a renter in Australia? Have you ever used tech to find and apply for a home, log maintenance, or pay rent? I want to speak with you!
www.samanthafloreani.com
December 9, 2025 at 11:25 PM
floreani.bsky.social
today in Vic Parliament: a bill that will mean children as young as 14 will face adult prison sentences. we know this will disproportionately harm Blak, brown and migrant kids, and it goes against decades of evidence. tell the Allan govt to scrap this awful bill: cv-au.replit.app/kids-need-care
A drawing of two white children playing, their ball has bounced to another child, with a darker skin tone, who is in a cage. Text reads: Kids need care, not cages. Tell the Vic Govt: No adult prison sentences for children.
December 2, 2025 at 12:22 AM
floreani.bsky.social
my heart!!
A screenshot of an email that reads: "Hello Samantha, this is probably going to be an extremely nothingburger email for you and probably not interesting at all, but I'm speaking for me and my friends here since we wanted to thank you for writing your latest article in The Guardian, the one about being an "AI detective", which I had to talk about in my English class as part of an assignment. We're just college kids, art students specifically, but we feel so seen thanks to it. We're constantly drowning in the AI slop you talk about, fearing our professors will send our work back because some AI scanner said it's 90% AI written, a real danger since most of our classmates use ChatGPT and other AI generated engines. It feels refreshing to see someone as educated and well-read as you speak up against AI in such a big medium. So genuinely, thank you, and please know that your work has made a bunch of 21 year olds really happy this week."
November 27, 2025 at 10:46 PM
floreani.bsky.social
Three years ago I emailed Jathan in response to a PhD call-out. Now I’m two years in (to a different project because I waited too long and missed the opportunity - don’t be like me! send the email!) and it’s been great. Jathan is a wonderful supervisor and this project is both cool and important
jathansadowski.com Jathan Sadowski @jathansadowski.com · Nov 25
Call for PhD Student!

I'm recruiting a PhD student to work with me on a project related to my Future Fellowship at Monash University on the political economy of insurance, risk technology, climate governance, and the crisis of uninsurability. Here's the overview of my fellowship.
A necessary analysis of polycrisis and its consequences must account for the industries, technologies, and policies that govern risks-and, crucially, how they engage in socio-technical processes of defining, predicting, and valuing risks. By synthesising the following objectives into a cohesive research program, this Future Fellowship aims to create essential empirical knowledge about urgent problems of insurability, which will inform new policy solutions and critical theories, all for the purpose of understanding and tackling the complex polycrisis at the nexus of insurance markets, risk technologies, and climate governance regimes. • Objective 1: Examine the design and construction of climate risk models by insurance industry and risk analytics firms to identify the assumptions, trade-offs, values, and goals built into these systems. • Objective 2: Engage directly with governments and communities at the frontlines of risk vulnerability to understand how abstract computational models and simulations connect to lived experiences and ground truth. • Objective 3: Develop new policies and frameworks for climate risk justice, which are informed by original empirical work and contribute to greater equity and security in risk governance. • Objective 4: Generate critical theoretical contributions that guide analytical and applied work about the techno-politics of risk governance in an age of global polycrisis. This fellowship advances our understanding of climate risk governance across three Workstreams. Workstream 1 will conduct ethnography at insurance industry conferences and with companies building climate risk models. Workstream 2 will engage in research with governments and communities who are managing the risks and realities of uninsurability from natural disasters. Workstream 3 will collaborate with a climate policy think tank to develop innovative policies grounded in original empirical research and conceptual analysis-that advance climate justice.
November 27, 2025 at 8:30 PM
Reposted by samantha floreani
jathansadowski.com
Call for PhD Student!

I'm recruiting a PhD student to work with me on a project related to my Future Fellowship at Monash University on the political economy of insurance, risk technology, climate governance, and the crisis of uninsurability. Here's the overview of my fellowship.
A necessary analysis of polycrisis and its consequences must account for the industries, technologies, and policies that govern risks-and, crucially, how they engage in socio-technical processes of defining, predicting, and valuing risks. By synthesising the following objectives into a cohesive research program, this Future Fellowship aims to create essential empirical knowledge about urgent problems of insurability, which will inform new policy solutions and critical theories, all for the purpose of understanding and tackling the complex polycrisis at the nexus of insurance markets, risk technologies, and climate governance regimes. • Objective 1: Examine the design and construction of climate risk models by insurance industry and risk analytics firms to identify the assumptions, trade-offs, values, and goals built into these systems. • Objective 2: Engage directly with governments and communities at the frontlines of risk vulnerability to understand how abstract computational models and simulations connect to lived experiences and ground truth. • Objective 3: Develop new policies and frameworks for climate risk justice, which are informed by original empirical work and contribute to greater equity and security in risk governance. • Objective 4: Generate critical theoretical contributions that guide analytical and applied work about the techno-politics of risk governance in an age of global polycrisis. This fellowship advances our understanding of climate risk governance across three Workstreams. Workstream 1 will conduct ethnography at insurance industry conferences and with companies building climate risk models. Workstream 2 will engage in research with governments and communities who are managing the risks and realities of uninsurability from natural disasters. Workstream 3 will collaborate with a climate policy think tank to develop innovative policies grounded in original empirical research and conceptual analysis-that advance climate justice.
November 25, 2025 at 10:44 PM
Reposted by samantha floreani
astra.bsky.social
We need more honest language:

Theft Tech (AI)

Grift Tech (crypto)

Death Tech (automated weapons and military surveillance)
naomiaklein.bsky.social Naomi Klein @naomiaklein.bsky.social · Nov 17
"theft tech" is a term my pal @astra.bsky.social thought of just today when we were working on our book about these End Times Fascists.

We were thinking about what should happen when this this bubble busts, as we all know it will.

Remember: they have bunkers. We don't. 2/3
November 17, 2025 at 7:01 PM
floreani.bsky.social
do you resent playing AI detective online??? does it make you so, so annoyed to spend time looking for generative AI red flags? me too!!! my latest piece for the guardian is for those of us who are fed! up!
Becoming an AI-detective is a job I never wanted and wish I could quit | Samantha Floreani
My social media feed is now a hellish stream of puerile AI slop. Am I stubborn to want to hang on to reality?
www.theguardian.com
November 19, 2025 at 12:50 AM
floreani.bsky.social
giving a talk tomorrow, it will not be cynical
A screenshot of an opening keynote slide. The right half is a picture of a retro computer, the left is a plain blue background with white text that reads: "Digital Rights Advocacy in Australia, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love to Push a Boulder Up That Hill"
November 12, 2025 at 3:35 AM
floreani.bsky.social
what shines through, to me, is that while landlords overwhelmingly see themselves as "providing an essential service" they avoid accountability for the obligations that kind of service provision requires. they want a pat on the back for doing a ~good deed~ without the work or responsibility
Renting in Reality — Landlords Insights - CPRC
cprc.org.au
November 6, 2025 at 1:56 AM
floreani.bsky.social
my number one piece of advice to people wanting to do a PhD is to pick a topic that makes you so. fucking. angry. truly incredible the level of motivation that unbridled rage can provide
October 28, 2025 at 2:55 AM
floreani.bsky.social
Lily Allen's 'West End Girl' is an emotionally excruciating examination of what happens when people attempt to open a relationship as a solution to a fundamentally broken romantic partnership and the affect of non-ethical non-monogamy. In this essay I will
October 27, 2025 at 3:08 AM
floreani.bsky.social
Ok and in Victoria, rentals must have heating to meet minimum standards requirements. Searching in Melbourne when you check the 'heating' filter drops from 3365 to 2098 properties.
floreani.bsky.social samantha floreani @floreani.bsky.social · Oct 25
As of May 2025 it's unlawful in NSW for a landlord or agent to advertise that pets will not be permitted in a rental property. When you search for a rental in Sydney on realestate.com.au, 1019 rental properties return. If you tick the 'pets considered' filter option, it drops to 125 properties.
October 25, 2025 at 4:39 AM
floreani.bsky.social
As of May 2025 it's unlawful in NSW for a landlord or agent to advertise that pets will not be permitted in a rental property. When you search for a rental in Sydney on realestate.com.au, 1019 rental properties return. If you tick the 'pets considered' filter option, it drops to 125 properties.
October 25, 2025 at 3:36 AM
Reposted by samantha floreani
purplepingers.bsky.social
A Melbourne real estate agency just casually putting a job out on Airtasker for a lawyer to write a cease and desist for a fkn Google review. Incredible.
October 24, 2025 at 5:56 AM
floreani.bsky.social
what in the moral valuation of women meets moral judgement of renters is happening in this choice of photo to visually represent "bad tenants"

dare I say it but 365 partygirls still deserve housing xoxo
October 24, 2025 at 5:20 AM
Reposted by samantha floreani
betterrenting.bsky.social
It's going to get up to 40° in Sydney today. Summer hasn't even started yet.

If you're baking in your rental home, join our Renter Lab to help us make sure renters don't have to suffer through another unbearable summer: bit.ly/renter-lab-S...
October 22, 2025 at 1:14 AM
floreani.bsky.social
any renters out there who have been pushed to use an AI chatbot as part of your rental experience, I'd love to chat with you for my PhD research! I'm looking at the ways that tech in the private rental sector is impacting renters + housing justice and this seems...troubling
purplepingers.bsky.social Purplepingers ☭ @purplepingers.bsky.social · Oct 10
Nelson Alexander requiring tenants to use an AI chatbot to report urgent repairs. Reportedly this chatbot cannot differentiate between urgent and non-urgent repairs. Incredible.
October 23, 2025 at 8:57 AM
Reposted by samantha floreani
purplepingers.bsky.social
Nelson Alexander requiring tenants to use an AI chatbot to report urgent repairs. Reportedly this chatbot cannot differentiate between urgent and non-urgent repairs. Incredible.
October 10, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Reposted by samantha floreani
jathansadowski.com
Melbourne folks! I'm going to be part of a Luddite Tribunal organised by the Brunswick Library — you gotta love public libraries and their critical workers — on November 27th at 6:30pm. I'll be joined by Lizzie O'Shea; it'll be a ton of fun! Free registration: www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-luddit...
Luddite Tribunal! Featuring Lizzie O'Shea and Jathan Sadowski Technology is on trial, and you’re the jury. It’s hammer time! Welcome to the Luddite Tribunal where we channel the revolutionary spirit of the Luddites and critically examine the role of digital technologies in our day to day lives with panellists, Jathan Sadowski (host of This Machine Kills podcast) and Lizzie O’Shea (lawyer and digital rights activist). Bring along a piece of technology to be judged or participate as a jury member and help us decide whether an item is an “obnoxious machine” or socially beneficial. Thursday 27 November, 6.30pm Brunswick Library
October 23, 2025 at 1:22 AM
Reposted by samantha floreani
jathansadowski.com
Oh damn, Kohei Saito has entered into the techno-feudalism debate and his argument aligns with what me and @bigblackjacobin have been saying for a long time: Stop saying techno-feudalism, this is called rentier capitalism, and it's the basis for techno-fascism. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Rentier capitalism, technofascism and the destruction of the common by Kohei Saito and Ryuji Sasaki This paper critically examines the emerging discourse on technofeudalism. While mainstream narratives celebrate technological advancement driven by American tech giants, proponents of the technofeudalism thesis argue that a new ruling class – ‘cloudalists’ – has supplanted traditional capitalists, extracting data and rent in ways reminiscent of feudal relations. However, this discourse fails to account for the ongoing dynamism of capitalist investment and competition. In contrast, this paper advances the concept of rentier capitalism by revisiting Marx’s analysis in Capital, with particular attention to his often-overlooked theory of ground rent in Volume III. Drawing on Marx’s notebooks published for the first time in the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA), the paper argues that rentier capitalism constitutes the most advanced and contradictory form of contemporary capitalism, which accelerates the destruction of the common and undermines the conditions necessary for working-class solidarity. As the dual crisis of capital accumulation and anti-systemic movements intensifies socio-economic and political instability, the threat of an authoritarian turn towards technofascism becomes increasingly imminent.
October 21, 2025 at 11:32 PM
floreani.bsky.social
look all I’m saying is that one job AI could never come for is a jewellery heist at the louvre
October 21, 2025 at 3:48 AM
floreani.bsky.social
I'm currently looking to talk with renters who have used a digital portal / app to conduct their own routine rental inspection without the real estate agent coming to your house. This is sometimes called a 'Remote Inspection'

If this is you, please get in touch!
floreani.bsky.social samantha floreani @floreani.bsky.social · Jun 18
I’m researching ways that digital technologies in Australia's private rental sector are impacting renters and housing justice.

I’m looking for more interview participants. If you are a renter and have experience using ‘RentTech’ - I want to speak with you!

More info and EOI here:
The Machine-Readable Renter — Samantha Floreani
Participants needed! Are you a renter in Australia? Have you ever used tech to find and apply for a home, log maintenance, or pay rent? I want to speak with you!
www.samanthafloreani.com
October 19, 2025 at 11:06 PM