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ferraribraun.bsky.social
Agustin Ferrari Braun
@ferraribraun.bsky.social
310 followers 360 following 150 posts
PhD researcher at the University of Amsterdam | Studying digital infrastructures, power and media in Europe | No business as usual during genocide 🇵🇸 | he/him
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Reposted by Agustin Ferrari Braun
benbraun.bsky.social
The central argument in this excellent paper & thread is that the open-access turn has neglected profit; indeed, it turbo-charged publishers’ margins. As political economists who know a thing or two about profit and power we should speak up a lot more. As it says below: What we’re doing is crazy.
hansonmark.bsky.social Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 5d
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 12, 2025 at 8:30 AM
Reposted by Agustin Ferrari Braun
claesdevreese.bsky.social
As a scholar I rarely offer electoral guidance. But today I do:

DO NOT USE AI CHATBOTS AS YOUR VOTE ADVICE APPLICATION AHEAD OF (THE DUTCH) ELECTIONS

Full of errors, bias and lack of transparency.

@ernesto-deleon.com @favstats.eu @theoaraujo.bsky.social and🙋unpack why

algosoc.org/results/1-in...
1 in 10 Dutch citizens are likely to ask AI for election advice. This is why they shouldn't | AlgoSoc
algosoc.org
October 29, 2025 at 7:24 AM
Reposted by Agustin Ferrari Braun
jaapkooijman.bsky.social
ASCA, the research school of which I’m the director, has been “blacklisted” by the state of Florida, as reported by @foliacivitatis.bsky.social. We were informed of this in a letter, dated 7 October 2025, which we “ter kennisgeving hebben aangenomen” ("have accepted for information purposes").
UvA blacklisted by US state of Florida
www.folia.nl
October 21, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Reposted by Agustin Ferrari Braun
marijnsax.bsky.social
Rechter: Instagram en Facebook moeten algoritmevrije optie krijgen - nos.nl/l/2584891
October 2, 2025 at 11:22 AM
ferraribraun.bsky.social
Really happy to be joining the AIMD Lab, one of the most exciting research spaces in Europe to study tech and media!
aimediademlab.bsky.social AI, Media & Democracy Lab @aimediademlab.bsky.social · Oct 2
@ferraribraun.bsky.social just joined our lab! As a PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam's Media Studies department, he's interested in how digital technologies have been changing the production environments of news organisations.

Welcome, Agustin!

More info: www.aim4dem.nl/about-agusti...
October 2, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Reposted by Agustin Ferrari Braun
veramoreijn.bsky.social
Ik herhaal ook hierover weer mijn plea: media, alsjeblieft, BESTEED HIER AANDACHT AAN. Wilders' programma staat vol met punten die voor trans mensen het leven volstrekt onmogelijk zouden maken. Ik heb er NIET EEN krant of tv-programma over gehoord. Nogmaals, ik licht het desnoods punt voor punt toe.
drmarina.bsky.social dr. Marina @drmarina.bsky.social · Oct 1
Wilders: “More and more people today have enough of the woke-madness and transgender ideology.” Is transgender een ideologie? Feit is dat ook bij Wilders transgenders niet veilig zijn.
October 1, 2025 at 7:14 PM
ferraribraun.bsky.social
"Every sovereign AI initiative should be mandated to serve the public good. These systems must legally demonstrate that they fulfill publicly defined goals, with their performance measured and reported openly"

🔥🔥🔥🔥
techpolicypress.bsky.social Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · Sep 29
We must move past a simplistic view of techno nationalism and embark on the challenging work of establishing digital infrastructures that are powerful, participatory, transparent, and fundamentally accountable to the people they serve, writes @Vaibhav Chhimpa.
How National AI Clouds Undermine Democracy | TechPolicy.Press
The global rush toward digital sovereignty overlooks a significant and growing threat to the democracies it claims to defend, writes Vaibhav Chhimpa.
buff.ly
September 29, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Agustin Ferrari Braun
merijnoudenampsen.org
Goede repliek op dat rare item over eenkennige universiteiten van @nieuwsuur.nl.
Opinie: De universiteit is geen talkshowtafel
De druk op academische vrijheid komt niet vanuit studenten, maar vanuit politieke partijen die zich willen bemoeien met de inhoud van colleges. Ook media dragen daar aan bij door onvoldoende kritisch ...
www.volkskrant.nl
September 25, 2025 at 8:05 AM
Reposted by Agustin Ferrari Braun
publictechmedialab.bsky.social
The @publictechmedialab.bsky.social just got bigger! Welcome @ferraribraun.bsky.social, who is joining us as a research fellow! 

Agustin is a PhD researcher at the AlgoSoc Consortium, affiliated with Media Studies and the @ivir-uva.bsky.social at UvA.

See more info: https://ptml.sjmc.wisc.edu/
September 22, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by Agustin Ferrari Braun
victorpickard.bsky.social
Been talking nonstop about this shameful episode for the past two days & this point needs to be underscored: It's the culmination of longstanding structural defects in our media, not simply the bad actions of bad actors. What happened to Jimmy Kimmel is a downstream manifestation of systemic probs:
victorpickard.bsky.social Victor Pickard @victorpickard.bsky.social · Sep 19
Talked to Jim Rutenberg at the NYT about whether there were any historical precedents in the U.S. for Trump's frontal assault on our media, especially this kind of FCC intervention focused on silencing dissent, directly violating free speech, etc. Could think of none: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/b...
Trump Administration Wields Its Full Toolbox to Bring Media to Heel
www.nytimes.com
September 19, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Reposted by Agustin Ferrari Braun
ddzeeuw.bsky.social
Together with Marc Tuters and @robtoes.bsky.social I wrote an essay on the Charlie Kirk assassination, the Groypers - Nick Fuentes connection and the state of memetic political violence today oilab.eu/frozen-antag...
Frozen Antagonisms: Charlie Kirk, Groypers, and the Meme Politics of Violence – OILab
oilab.eu
September 14, 2025 at 8:05 PM
ferraribraun.bsky.social
I really believe that disentangling this apparatus is the task for social sciences and the humanities in the foreseeable future. Nothing else is as urgent as this
thrasherxy.bsky.social Steven W. Thrasher is finishing The Overseer Class @thrasherxy.bsky.social · Sep 12
I can’t quite put it into words yet, but something is happening, a kind of global singularity—a fusion of tech/media/news/government/employment which allows the global elite to push single agendas: “You WILL care about Charlie Kirk. You will NOT care about Palestine. You WILL fear cancel culture.”
eschatonblog.com Atrios @eschatonblog.com · Sep 12
Think we are up to 8 bbc news alerts about charlie kirk.
September 12, 2025 at 10:10 AM
Reposted by Agustin Ferrari Braun
guusvalk.bsky.social
August 31, 2025 at 7:09 PM
ferraribraun.bsky.social
Picked this up last year to quickly check a couple of facts and I simply couldn't put it down.

Strongly recommend it
cominsitu.bsky.social Cominsitu @cominsitu.bsky.social · Aug 26
Coming soon in paperback!

The Poetry of Class:
Romantic Anti-Capitalism and the Invention of the Proletariat
by Patrick Eiden-Offe

www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2803-t...
August 26, 2025 at 7:16 PM
ferraribraun.bsky.social
It's been over 15 years since the original was published and 8 since the follow-up, but Tarlton Gillespie's papers on the platform metaphor remain a fundamental read to avoid falling into these traps

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

culturedigitally.org/2017/08/plat...
August 24, 2025 at 5:43 PM
ferraribraun.bsky.social
Sad to hear about the passing of Michel Callon, one of the most important STS scholars ever
sylvainbourmeau.bsky.social Sylvain Bourmeau @sylvainbourmeau.bsky.social · Aug 7
Je suis triste ce soir d’apprendre la mort de Michel Callon, que j’ai commencé à lire au mitan des années 1980, en même temps que son ami et co-auteur Bruno Latour. Quel choc ce fut, en 1986, de lire son article (devenu célèbre) sur les coquilles Saint-Jacques dans la baie de Saint-Brieuc…
August 8, 2025 at 7:47 AM
Reposted by Agustin Ferrari Braun
mariafarrell.bsky.social
There's blood on our servers.
conorhumphries.bsky.social Conor Humphries @conorhumphries.bsky.social · Aug 6
Files suggest that by July this year, 11,500 terabytes of Israeli military data – equivalent to approximately 200m hours of audio – was held in Microsoft’s Azure servers in the Netherlands, while a smaller proportion was stored in Ireland. @theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...
‘A million calls an hour’: Israel relying on Microsoft cloud for expansive surveillance of Palestinians
Revealed: The Israeli military undertook an ambitious project to store a giant trove of Palestinians’ phone calls on Microsoft’s servers in Europe
www.theguardian.com
August 6, 2025 at 4:12 PM
ferraribraun.bsky.social
Here's the report from Forensic Architecture on the bombardment of the Al-Ahli hospital that 1) shows that the rocket was fired by Israel, and 2) that it's denial was part of the IDF's informational warfare tactics

forensic-architecture.org/investigatio...
August 3, 2025 at 11:20 PM
Reposted by Agustin Ferrari Braun
michae.lv
This is a stupid argument.

ZKPs aren’t bad because they’re not confidential enough.

Worry instead because people can ask you to prove anything, at any time, to provision or deny you access to services, while saying ‘privacy is solved’! Rules, not disclosure, are the risk.

Do better @eff.org.
eff.org Electronic Frontier Foundation @eff.org · Aug 3
Zero‑Knowledge Proofs let users prove they are over 18 without exact birth dates, but they don’t stop verifiers from collecting information like your IP address. These alone aren’t enough to protect privacy and shouldn’t be pushed forward without proper protections in place.
Zero Knowledge Proofs Alone Are Not a Digital ID Solution to Protecting User Privacy
In the past few years, governments across the world have rolled out digital identification options, and now there are efforts encouraging online companies to implement identity and age verification re...
www.eff.org
August 3, 2025 at 3:19 PM
ferraribraun.bsky.social
Amsterdam Centraal
Demonstration against the ongoing genocide in Gaza at Centraal Station, Amsterdam. There are three signs that read "starving children should feed your action", "stop genocide in Gaza", and "stop holocaust by Israel"
July 31, 2025 at 5:03 PM
ferraribraun.bsky.social
Chapo Trap House was cooking in today's episode when they called the ongoing moves to recognise a Palestinian state a pre-emptive land acknowledgement. Of course the episode was recorded before Starmer managed to find an even more aggravating position
July 29, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Reposted by Agustin Ferrari Braun
pashukanist.bsky.social
I think the fundamental error in this piece is imagining that there is some inherent tension between Starmer the human rights lawyer, and Starmer the ruthless bourgeois state manager.

And like, I don't think that's what's going on?

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Starmer v Starmer: why is the former human rights lawyer so cautious about defending human rights?
The long read: Many of his supporters hoped the prime minister would restore the UK’s commitment to international law. Yet Labour’s record over the past year has been curiously mixed
www.theguardian.com
July 29, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Reposted by Agustin Ferrari Braun
talboto.bsky.social
Heel fijn om de nieuwe editie van @jacobinnl.bsky.social in handen te hebben — inclusief mijn artikel over abolitie en straf!
Nu te lezen
Nieuwe editie van jacobin NL ‘vrijheid’
July 22, 2025 at 9:52 PM
ferraribraun.bsky.social
When Sarah started this video I rolled my eyes at her calling contemporary chess a text book example of late capitalism. One hour after I was completely convinced by her argument, go watch this!

youtu.be/ZtN-i-IkRWI?...
Everyone's Cheating At Chess (Allegedly)
YouTube video by Sarah Z
youtu.be
July 21, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Reposted by Agustin Ferrari Braun
brawnald.bsky.social
I'm honestly sick to fucking death of protesting this being treated as the greater crime. Fuck you amoral subhuman pieces of shit for enforcing such inhumanity. I only want to live in a future where you pay dearly for it.
July 19, 2025 at 12:32 PM