Sameer Padania

@sdp.bsky.social

1431 Followers 685 Following

public interest x journalism x information ecosystems x tech/AI accountability vs information inequality linkedin.com/in/sameerpadania #COYS #FRSA

screenshot of uber eats sainsbury’s screen showing four pots of yoghurt as “yogurt”.
Spain’s anaconda grip strangles France’s World Cup dream Relentless pressing, flawless possession and clinical finishing powered Spain past France 2-0, moving the European champions one step from World Cup glory
Ofwat is starting a conversation with the water sector and beyond to #ListenCareShare. We want to understand the challenges and experiences that water customers are facing, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, so we can all provide help and support in the right way, at the right time. To begin with we will Listen Care Share around three themes: financial vulnerability; mental wellbeing; information inequality. Research commissioned by Ofwat as part of #ListenCareShare, a piece of work to understand customers' experiences duringCovid-19, found that information about the types of customer support available is not reaching those who need it. Only 15% of customers are aware that financial sunnort for…
corinthians Corinthians has a new sponsor Fatal Fans arrives at Timão with the biggest sponsorship contract in history intended for the multi-sport modalities of the club. Resources from the partnership will be used to maintain the men's basketball team, as well as bolster investments in futsal and the men's and women's pro soccer departments. More than just visibility, partnership also carries purpose. In women's football, the exposure of the brand will make room for the expansion of the institutional campaign #RespeitaAsMinas, strengthening actions to combat violence against women and to promote gender equality.
application deadline that i just thought about, four days after it passed, because, well, i have been super busy doing work
Illustration by Alex Francis
“An earlier version incorrectly described Palantir as a spyware company; it is a spy-tech company.”
Writing in the early 20th century, Virginia Woolf made sustained attention the very substance of her prose – the flicker of light on water, the texture of a London morning, a moth dying on a windowpane. For Woolf and the modernists, paying close attention was not simply a way of experiencing art, it was one of the essential conditions of being human. Now we have festivals and artists such as Jack White banning smartphones, because the crowd were more glued to their phone screens than what was happening on stage. More theatres are considering Yondr pouches – especially after pho­tos of James Norton nude on stage in A Little Life were leaked in 2023. The fact that we need enforcement measures to create the conditions for attention is itself a reflection of how far things have gone.
Public policy schools today operate in a world undergoing profound transformation. Climate instability, geopolitical fragmentation, technological disruption, social polarisation, and demographic change are no longer distant risks, but immediate realities. These forces are reshaping governance in ways that blur traditional boundaries between developed and developing economies, public and private actors, and national and global policy arenas. In this context, how can public policy education evolve to better serve society?
Set list for Aldous Harding on 31 May 2026 at Barbican in London, UK. TRAIN ON THE ISLAND I ATE THE MOST ONE STOP TREASURE VENUS IN THE ZINNIA IF LADY DOES IT WORMS PASSION BABE LEATHERY WHIP SAN FRANCISCO WHAT AM I GONNA DO? FEVER WARM CHRIS COATS RIDING THAT SYMBOL IMAGINING MY MAN DESIGNER
i’m not going to transcribe the slop generated by this AI overview
screenshot from The London Minute newsletter reporting on H&F Council joylessly posting CCTV video of a graffiti artist spraying “I FART3D IN YOGA” on temporary hoardings.
DIGITAL CIVIC LIFE THROUGH THE DECADES 1990 – 2000 The early web sparked the first civic digital experiments: municipal data projects, e-democracy platforms, and campaigns to open public data. Tools like Craigslist and community listservs set the template for local online connection. 2000 – 2010 Web 2.0 put users in the driver’s seat with Wikipedia, YouTube, and open APIs. Local civic platforms launched, open-source code spread ideas globally, and blogs plus Twitter gave activists and journalists new organizing power. 2010 – 2020 Smartphones and tech giants reshaped daily life. Civic tech attracted hundreds of millions in funding, then petered out as funders grew discouraged by resulting impact. 2020 – 2025 COVID dramatically changed in-person interaction and virtual tools went mainstream. By 2025, the generative AI boom created both opportunity and uncertainty for public interest work. 2026+ A post platform future driven by wide adoption of AI tools that lower the cost and barriers for creating niche or hyper-local applications. Source: https://trustforciviclife.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/TCL_2026DigitalReport_for-web.pdf
About the job Join our team at the Guardian and be a part of a diverse and inclusive global organisation that delivers fearless, investigative journalism, and holds power to account. Our team of award-winning journalists, cutting-edge commercial professionals, and industry-leading digital experts are committed to making a difference and represent a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives. We offer a challenging and exciting environment for career development, with a focus on training, growth and fostering an inclusive culture. We are now looking for a deputy editor, community journalism. Community journalism plays a central role in the Guardian's newsroom. The team collaborates with our global audiences to ensure that people’s views and experiences are represented in our journalism. These can be stories that have been informed by views and experiences of people around the world in response to Guardian callouts across news, politics, business, society and culture. This is a permanent NUJ contract. About the role Generate and deliver agenda-setting UK and international community journalism projects Commission, write and edit community journalism callouts and articles. Deputise for and represent the community journalism editor when required Liaise and collaborate with other Guardian desks and global offices to facilitate community journalism callouts and articles Build editorial relationships with staff at all levels in the UK and other global offices Help shape thinking about the most effective ways to evolve community journalism at the Guardian Think creatively about the future of Guardian community journalism on video and social media platforms
John Boorman: When Zardoz opened in France, the communist newspaper asked me to go to their office, and they were very nervous and agitated…
Fellow citizens, Last evening, we officiated at Crown TV Zambia’s 5th anniversary celebration under the theme “Five Years of Excellence.” We reaffirmed Government’s commitment to media freedom and to the growth of a professional, independent media sector. We commended Crown TV for its rapid growth and contribution to our evolving media landscape. Official records note that it is now one of Zambia’s leading television stations, available on TopStar, StarTimes, DStv, and GOtv, with plans to expand to Azam TV. We recognised that reaching over 4.5 million households carries significant responsibility. We attribute the station’s success to strong leadership, a skilled workforce, and its commendable commitment to achieving gender parity in management. We reiterated Government’s resolve to safeguard democratic freedoms, including freedom of expression. That right guides our public service and we have taken deliberate steps to create a more open and supportive environment for the media. We assured the nation that Government will continue to foster a media landscape that is free, fair and conducive to national development. We urged Crown TV to keep innovating and upholding high journalistic standards as our media sector grows. Thabo Kawana Permanent Secretary Ministry of Information and Media
Statement on the integrity of the Draft National Artificial Intelligence Policy Following revelations that the Draft National Artificial Intelligence Policy published for public comment contains various fictitious sources in its reference list, we initiated internal questions which have now confirmed that this was the case. This failure is not a mere technical issue but has compromised the integrity and credibility of the draft policy. As such, I am withdrawing the Draft National Artificial intelligence Policy. South Africans deserve better. The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies did not deliver on the standard that is acceptable for an institution entrusted with the role to lead South Africa ‘s digital policy environment. The most plausible explanation is that AI-generated citations were included without proper verification. This should not have happened. In fact, this unacceptable lapse proves why vigilant human oversight over the use of artificial intelligence is critical. It’s a lesson we take with humility. I want to reassure the country that we are treating this matter with the gravity it deserves. There will be consequence management for those responsible for drafting and quality assurance. End.
Screenshot of a photo by Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Getty Images, of Tottenham Hotspur player Xavi Simons crying out in agony (physical and emotional) after suffering an as-yet unconfirmed injury to his right knee - an injury while royally "disrupts" Spurs' attempts to save themselves from relegation from the English Premier League, given that he was more or less the only fit player left in the squad who can pass. "O that torment should not be confin'd To the bodies wounds and sores With maladies innumerable In heart, head, brest, & reins; But must secret passage find To th' inmost mind, There exercise all his fierce accidents, And on her purest spirits prey, As on entrails, joints, and limbs, With answerable pains, but more intense, Though void of corporal sense." Simons Agonistes FFS
“We’re offering visa support…”
From Demos' Our BBC report (January 2026): Generative AI is industrialising the production and distribution of textual and visual mis/disinformation at near-zero cost, while algorithmic content platforms are optimising for attention and engagement with polarising content, regardless of its accuracy, drowning out verified information such as journalism or scientific research. US-owned companies including Google, Meta, Amazon, and X control the critical infrastructure through which millions of UK citizens access information, from local news ecosystems to global information flows: the hardware layer (devices, operating systems), the distribution layer (app stores, browsers, search, messaging, social media, streaming platforms, real-time information, and increasingly, AI interfaces, including agents), and the economic layer (payment systems, advertising systems, data extraction infrastructure). This is a systematic restructuring of the information environment to determine what software, content and information audiences can access through their devices, and who can be economically viable. Public service media have to deliver ‘universality’ in an environment where the incentives are increasingly structurally tilted in the diametrically opposite direction. For the BBC in particular, despite needing to meet universal service obligations, it has been subjected to starvation cycles, resulting in an overall real-terms budget cut of 38-40% over 15 years23 - which in some budget areas will be even higher. This requirement has been instituted while also needing to minimise its commercial impact. Such constrained funding conditions set the BBC up to fail in a media landscape where - unlike in previous Charter Renewal processes, where it was facing a range of domestic news and media competitors - it now faces a wholly new set of competitors that are new entrants, such as social media platforms, and which have few obligations and outsized resources.
So the next time you hear someone say quantum computing reduces the security of AES by a factor of two, kindly remind them that’s a superstition that’s distracting engineers from the real and considerable work in preparing the world for the advent of CRQC. It’s a tall enough order updating asymmetric algorithms known to be vulnerable to Shor’s algorithm, which breaks them in polynomial time, specifically cubic time, a massive advantage compared with the exponential time provided by today’s classical computers. [like, obvs.]
orban conceding!
Sébastien Tellier and band on stage at Koko in Camden, London, in March 2026.
But the report also finds that in every corner of the globe people are choosing to resist rather than comply. Millions are taking action for the first time, compelled to speak out by injustices too large to ignore, from Israel’s genocide in Gaza to the brutality of ICE agents in the USA. Even in repressive settings like Tanzania where state violence is rife, people have taken to the streets because their governments and economies have fundamentally failed them.
THFC Season Ticket Renewal email, 12 March 2026: "We recognise the seriousness of the current league position of our men's team and, following discussions with our Fan Advisory Board and the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters' Trust, can confirm the renewal window for 2026/27 will now remain open for an extended period until Sunday 7 June to ensure fans have full clarity on next season before renewing. Everyone at the Club remains absolutely steadfast in our collective commitment to improve our Premier League position and finish the current season as strongly as possible." SQUEAKY BUM TIME...
#stanleytucci’s reel on Instagram: “Fulham vs Tottenham and lucky enough to experience the new Riverside Stand. The food was delicious even if my son was disappointed with the match result”
Google AI Overview really taking the phygital to the next level: "Yes, you can label a Google Doc in two main ways: by adding metadata labels in Google Drive for organization, or by creating, formatting, and printing physical mailing/shipping labels within the document itself, often using add-ons like Labelmaker or Foxy Labels."
Revd Jesse Jackson at OSF in London in 2013. Yes, that is me Zelig-ing to the left.
This week, we're looking at experiences or customer service stories related to AI Customer Service: Have you found it impossible to talk to a real person when contacting a particular company? Have you ever got stuck in an endless loop of chatbot responses, while a serious situation remained unresolved? Have you struggled to get to the appropriate support because of AI? Has something truly bizarre come out of an interaction with a company's AI customer care? We want to hear from you! Send us your story in 300 words.
Pre-Bridget Christie at the Brighton Dome.