Sameer Padania
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sdp.bsky.social
Sameer Padania
@sdp.bsky.social
1.3K followers 480 following 12K posts
I work on public interest journalism and information ecosystems worldwide - and how they are funded and financed.

https://macrosco.pe / linkedin.com/in/sameerpadania

#THFC #COYS #FRSA
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sdp.bsky.social
Unsurprised at the level of response to @lewisgoodall.com’s piece below. And glad to see the start of genuine debate about the existence of - and ways to remove - political interference in the BBC (and making much-needed improvements to the BBC itself).

What are the best ideas you’ve seen?
November 11, 2025 at 10:53 AM
sdp.bsky.social
Insights from @demos-uk.bsky.social’s new report ”inside the mind of a 16-year-old”, and I should probably give a trigger warning to sensitive older newspaper readers (Telegraph)

#youth #GenZ #media #medialiteracy

demos.co.uk/wp-content/u...
November 10, 2025 at 8:59 PM
sdp.bsky.social
Today and all days.

#THFC #COYS
November 8, 2025 at 11:45 AM
sdp.bsky.social
Nella sedia di George Orwell, per Enrico Malatesta (@ Angelica, Centro Di Ricerco Musicale, Bologna):

aaa-angelica.com/aaa/ricercae...
November 2, 2025 at 6:25 PM
sdp.bsky.social
now that I have actually left the meeting I came here for, and am out foraging for myself, i get why I haven’t been back to Naples since the late 90s/early 2000s - because it took me 20 years to lose the weight I gained in a weekend.
October 31, 2025 at 3:24 PM
sdp.bsky.social
South Asia: youth revolution
London: sandwich revolution
Sign on soon-to-be opened sandwich shop in central London, reading “Join the Sandwich Revolution”
October 27, 2025 at 8:13 AM
sdp.bsky.social
RUN

#sebastientellier #livemusic

corida.fr/archives/ban...
Sebastien Tellier tour dates 2026 26 févr. 2026 - Rouen - Le 106 28 févr. 2026 - Geneve - L'alhambra 05 mars 2026 - Nancy - L'autre Canal 06 mars 2026 - Lille - Aeronef 10 mars 2026 - Bruxelles - Cirque Royal 12 mars 2026 - Marseille - Silo 13 mars 2026 - Nimes - Paloma 14 mars 2026 - Toulouse - Le Bikini 16 mars 2026 - Paris - Olympia 19 mars 2026 - Reims - La Cartonnerie 20 mars 2026 - Dijon - La Vapeur 21 mars 2026 - Strasbourg - La Briqueterie 23 mars 2026 - Londres - Koko 25 mars 2026 - Bordeaux - Rocher De Palm 26 mars 2026 - Rennes - Mem 2 27 mars 2026 - Nantes - Stereolux 30 mars 2026 - Berlin - Theater Des Wester
October 15, 2025 at 7:55 PM
sdp.bsky.social
Weirdly, I just read @rebekahmccabe.bsky.social’s post about Manchán (I hadn’t heard of him before), and am listening to NTS where they just played Willow’s Song.
October 14, 2025 at 7:09 AM
sdp.bsky.social
The @theguardian.com’s @barneyronay.bsky.social on Gary Neville, patriotism and #GeorgeOrwell:

www.theguardian.com/football/202...
The best thing he said was that "the union flag being used in a negative fashion is not right", something that is, intentionally or not, very George Orwell in its understanding of patriotism. Orwell gets marched around the place in a headlock all the time these days, dragged randomly into every debate. But he knew about symbols and flags and about Englishness and its values.
October 11, 2025 at 2:33 PM
sdp.bsky.social
Surreal piece in @theguardian.com that pretends to be about an alleged crime wave in London, but in fact is largely about the “super-rich” having their watches and other signs of conspicuous consumption snatched…

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
'London has turned into something crazy': is the city in the grip of a crime wave? Perception of runaway crime partly blamed for 'driving away the super-rich' but in reality some high-profile offences such as watch theft are falling
October 11, 2025 at 2:19 PM
sdp.bsky.social
Off to Leicester on the coach for the @publicinterestnews.org.uk #LocalNews Forum, surrounded by signs:
The now weekly London Standard, but no local paper here in the local Cafe Nero in Golders Green. Empty hoppers everywhere. J’EXISTE LOOK BOTH WAYS
October 10, 2025 at 9:14 AM
sdp.bsky.social
Right… got it…

#openai #nvidia #oracle #microsoft #amd …
October 8, 2025 at 11:33 PM
sdp.bsky.social
For all #Kafka fans, @legorafi.bsky.social with a horrifying new take on Die Verwandlung (Metamorphosis):
LE GORAFI Costume noir Celio Club, chemise blanche Uniqlo, chaussures en cuir de chez Bexley et after-shave Acqua di Parma, c'est sous cette nouvelle forme que Samsa, une blatte germanique, s'est réveillée ce matin dans sa chambre praguoise. Au prix d'un effort surhumain, Samsa parvient à s'extraire de son lit et découvre dans le miroir de la salle de bain l'image d'un homme brun d'une trentaine d'années rasé de près, les cheveux fortement gominés et 32 dents définitives blanchies au peroxyde. Une vision d'horreur qui la pousse immédiatement à se barricader dans sa chambre en feignant de ne pas entendre les appels de son père, de sa mère, de sa sœur, et de ImmoStores, sa toute nouvelle entreprise de Vélux. Terrorisée, Samsa décide finalement d'expliquer la situation à ses proches à travers la porte mais les mots qui sortent de sa bouche la clouent aussitôt sur place : "Alors petit point rapidos : je suis en train d'expérimenter un process de transformation full-stack totalement disruptif. Il faut absolument que vous vous positionniez comme des facilitateurs pour orchestrer un écosystème de résilience framework parce que là ma lifetime value est limite border et j'ai zéro visibilité sur ma capacité à penser transverse face à ce nouveau challenge". Une explication qui entraînera aussitôt l'explosion en sanglots de sa mère de l'autre côté du mur ainsi que plusieurs coups de hache dans la porte par son père, bien décidé à le faire taire pour de bon.
October 8, 2025 at 12:23 PM
sdp.bsky.social
Yes to all of this piece, but it should also serve as Exhibit ♾️ for those (including in #philanthropy) who believe that #readerrevenue will save local and independent #journalism in the UK.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
October 3, 2025 at 7:16 AM
sdp.bsky.social
Did not know this about Bruno. Curious if/how @stephmerritt.bsky.social folds this into her novels (I have a terrible memory so can’t recall seeing it mentioned).

(www.quest-cdecjournal.it/discussion-b...)
Similarly, the philosopher Giordano Bruno, on the basis of his own idea of the infinity of worlds, stated the existence of "parallel Adams": the earth was home to several human species, divided by the philosopher on the basis of colour, whose origin could not be traced back to a single father. Whites, blacks and Jews had separate origins. Bruno ascribed a descent from Adam only to the Jewish race, the "sacred race" and he asserted very strongly that the "Ethiopian race" had no connection to Adam's lineage. With no connection to Adam's lineage. With Bruno, black populations began to be the subject of a distinction that a few years later would be reiterated with serious and dangerous overtones by Lucilio Vanini. For him, in fact, the Ethiopians are descended from apes.
October 1, 2025 at 11:56 AM
sdp.bsky.social
www.etuc.org/en/publicati...
• What is algorithmic management and what are it's key functions and risks? • How can trade unions 'negotiate the algorithm'? What role does collective agremeents play? • What does the EU Platform Work Directive means for platform workers' algorithmic rights? How can platform workers' make best use of this law? • How can workers recover and analyse information on how they are algorithmic managed? What are the best data tools available to help workers do this? • How can unions develop their training and infrastructure capacity in data and algorithmic management?
September 30, 2025 at 3:13 AM
sdp.bsky.social
Wondering what the UK version of this weak-mindedness will be.
So in 2008, Barack Obama ran as a unifying candidate, like him or hate him. I didn't vote for him. I was not a fan. But Barack Obama ran as somebody who was, in his very personage, unifying America. There was no red America, there was no blue America, there was just the United States. There was no Black or white America. There were just Americans. And the idea was that he was sort of the apotheosis of the coming together. He was going to be the culmination of a lot of these strands of American history coming together to put to bed so many of the problems that had plagued America over the course of our tumultuous history.... So he runs, he wins. Obamacare happens. There's a big blowback in the form of the Tea Party. And he reacts to that by essentially polarizing the electorate. He decides that instead of broadcasting to the general electorate an optimistic message about America, he is going to narrowcast his election in 2012. He's going to base it on a much more identity-groups-rooted politics. He's going to appeal to Black Americans as Black Americans and gay Americans as gay Americans and Latino Americans as Latino Americans. Klein: It's hard for me when I look back on that, on the "beer summit" in particular, to hear: That's what radicalized you all? Shapiro: Yes. And the reason is: The implicit promise of Barack Obama was the worst conflict in the history of America - which is the racial history of the United States, which is truly horrifying. That in his person, he was basically going to be the capstone of the great movement toward Martin Luther King's dream. And when, instead, things seemed to move in the opposite direction, which was: Well, you know, it turns out that Black people in America, they're inherently victimized by a white supremacist America, they're inherently victimized by a white supremacist system that puts Black people underfoot.... Klein: It kind of sounds like the interpretation of Obama, at least to you, was that if he's elected, we'll agree we've gotten past all this — that it's supposed to make us feel better, and then when it didn't, that was understood as the betrayal of a promise. Shapiro: That is how I think most Americans saw it.
September 30, 2025 at 2:14 AM
sdp.bsky.social
For an industry that so trumpets individual genius, the level of sheep-like behaviour is staggering.
“Earlier this year, MIT researchers found that a staggering 95 percent of attempts to incorporate generative Al into business so far are failing to drive rapid revenue growth. Researchers have also found that employees are actually being slowed down by Al "workslop" that needs to be fixed by a human with common sense.”
September 29, 2025 at 8:35 AM
sdp.bsky.social
#mentalhealth
Vaile Wright, who oversees health care innovation at the American Psychological Association, agreed that the apps could fill a need, noting a nationwide shortage of mental health providers, high costs for care and uneven access for insured patients. Stephan and her team initially held off calling their chatbot, which looks like a cartoon panda, a therapist. But when users began using the word in reviews, they embraced the terminology so the app would show up in searches. Regulators and advocates of the laws say they are open to changes. But today's chatbots are not a solution to the mental health provider shortage, said Kyle Hillman, who lobbied for the bills in Illinois and Nevada through his affiliation with the National Association of Social Workers. "Not everybody who's feeling sad needs a therapist," he said. But for people with real mental health issues or suicidal thoughts, "telling them, '1 know that there's a workforce shortage but here's a bot' — that is such a privileged position."
September 29, 2025 at 8:25 AM
sdp.bsky.social
It wasn’t till this Meera Sodha book came out that I understood - and could actually cook - the East African Gujarati food of my childhood. But I’ll never make Undhiyu like my mother does or my grandmother did - still has the effect it always did.
September 29, 2025 at 12:19 AM
sdp.bsky.social
Victim/injury-driven inversion of all norms, as signalled for years - obliteration of the notion of evidence, suppression of free speech, any alternatives are by definition subversive, rewriting of history & politics, Overton window is now a one-way mirror:

www.theguardian.com/business/202...
The New York Times reported on Thursday that a lawyer in the office of Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, sent a memo to several federal prosecutors in attorney's offices in California, New York, Washington DC, Chicago and Detroit, offering a range of charges to consider against the group. Those charges included racketeering, arson, wire fraud and material support for terrorism, the newspaper reported. The push comes as Trump has ramped up efforts to deploy the justice department to target his enemies. He has pledged to crack down on leftwing groups in the wake of Charlie Kirk's killing and has repeatedly singled out Soros, a major funder of liberal groups, as a target. "We're going to look into Soros, because I think it's a Rico case against him and other people," Trump said on 12 September, using an acronym to refer to racketeering…
September 26, 2025 at 10:41 AM
sdp.bsky.social
Curiously this mentions neither ‘profa’ violence, nor the networks or organisations that foment or fund it.

www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...
The WHITE HOUSE (i) institutional and individual funders, and officers and employees of organizations, that are responsible for, sponsor, or otherwise aid and abet the principal actors engaging in the criminal conduct described in subsections (a) and (b) of this section; and (il) non-governmental organizations and American citizens residing abroad or with close ties to foreign governments, agents, citizens, foundations, or influence networks engaged in violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (22 U.S.C. 611 et seq.) or money laundering by funding, creating, or supporting entities that engage in activities that support or encourage domestic terrorism. The WHITE HOUSE Q (1) The Secretary of the Treasury (Secretary), in coordination with the Attorney General, shall make available all resources, to the maximum extent permitted by law, to identify and disrupt financial networks that fund domestic terrorism and political violence. The Secretary, acting through the Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Office of the Department of the Treasury, shall deploy investigative tools, examine financial flows, and coordinate with partner agencies to trace illicit funding streams. The Secretary shall provide guidance for financial institutions to file Suspicious Activity Reports and investigate indicia of illicit funding streams to ensure such activity is rooted out at the source and referred for law enforcement action, as appropriate. (j) The Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (Commissioner) shall take action to ensure that no tax-exempt entities are directly or indirectly financing political violence or domestic terrorism. In addition, where applicable, the Commissioner shall ensure that the Internal Revenue Service refers such organizations, and the employees and officers of such organizations, to the Department of Justice for investigation and possible prosecution. = The WHITE HOUSE (j) The Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (Commissioner) shall take action to ensure that no tax-exempt entities are directly or indirectly financing political violence or domestic terrorism. In addition, where applicable, the Commissioner shall ensure that the Internal Revenue Service refers such organizations, and the employees and officers of such organizations, to the Department of Justice for investigation and possible prosecution.
September 26, 2025 at 6:02 AM
sdp.bsky.social
My allotment group is gearing up for its scheduled insurrection.
Screenshot of WhatsApp message earlier today: “Good afternoon folks. Remind me, can we start burning stuff on the 1st October?”
September 23, 2025 at 3:18 PM
sdp.bsky.social
Rewatching Petra Costa’s Apocalypse In The Tropics, and this snippet - of Pastor Malafaia - seems relevant somehow…

#freedomofspeech #brazil #usa #religion

www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/apo...

letterboxd.com/film/apocaly...
September 21, 2025 at 11:57 PM
sdp.bsky.social
Still hearing a lot of “the left must learn from the right” takes - many settle on the “flood the zone”, “find/fund a left-wing Joe Rogan” etc approach. On which, I was tab-pruning just now and spotted this counter-view open…

stringinamaze.net/p/democrats-...
This is what many liberals don't understand: the notable thing about Rogan's political trajectory is that the right has built a propaganda apparatus powerful enough to capture people like him and turn them into vectors of misinformation. You can boost left-leaning influencers all you want, but Twitter/X will still be in the hands of a reactionary freak, and the algorithms will still work to favor the right. You're finding better players, but the playing field is still uneven
September 21, 2025 at 10:00 AM