Media Bits and Bytes — June 23, 2026
- Reasons to Resist AI
- ICE and Signal
- ABC and “The View” vs FCC
- Corporate Pundits and Academic Freedom
- Check Again — It’s AI Slop
- Ready for Some Heavy Duty AI Analysis?
- Guardrails Alliance
- Solidarity Over Surveillance
- From Alt to Mainstream
- Climate Action and Big Tech
By Joseph Mogul, Waging Nonviolence
Many in the anti-capitalist left have an intuitive understanding of why AI is bad, even a visceral revulsion, but becoming fluent in the details is paramount to mounting an effective resistance.
By Nikita Mazurov, The Intercept
Fifteen people named in the latest indictment are all charged with “conspiracy to impede or injure an officer,” with some facing additional charges like “solicitation to commit a crime of violence” and “destruction of government property.” This after Kash Patel said federal law enforcement are after Minnesota ICE watchers using Signal groups to share information about immigration agents.
By Lucas Manfredi, The Wrap
Disney’s ABC is taking to the airwaves with a viewer awareness campaign to rally support for its two ongoing FCC proceedings about “The View” and the network’s broadcast licenses. The regulator is currently accepting the public’s comment on the early broadcast license renewals for its eight owned stations and a petition backing “The View” as a “bona fide” news interview program.
Corporate Pundits and Academic Freedom
By Raina Lipsitz, FAIR
Now that the US government and its allies in state government are cracking down on speech in ways they haven’t in decades, where has all that corporate media-fueled concern for our vanishing freedoms gone?
By Silvia Montaña-Niño and T.J. Thomson, The Conversation
While some AI slop might seem harmless and can be easily verified, other “media fakery” is becoming far more problematic and demands more robust techniques to verify. Traditional techniques are falling short as AI becomes increasingly convincing and the line between authentic and synthetic blurs. This is true across all content, from still images to moving ones and audio deepfakes.
Ready for Some Heavy Duty AI Analysis?
AI Runs the Gig Economy By Lena Simet and Anna Bacciarelli, Foreign Poiicy in Focus
What’s At Stake? By Andy Lee Roth, Truthout
What is Pax Silica? By Reihana Mohideen, Links
By Ana Maria Constantin, TNW
The Guardrails Alliance, a super PAC that supports AI regulation, launched with money from tech employees, labour unions and parents. Tech workers have spent the year organising, against ICE contracts and the Pentagon’s treatment of Anthropic, and Guardrails is trying to turn that discontent into votes.
By Raelyn Roberson, Free Press
This June, Free Press, the Disinfo Defense League and dozens of grassroots, civil-rights and press-freedom groups launched the Solidarity Over Surveillance (#SOS) campaign. The campaign is designed to counter the rise of authoritarianism by uniting communities to put an end to the extraction, storage and use of our data. The message is clear: Enough is enough.
By Sam Stall, Quill
Across the country, alternative papers and magazines, once the bratty, pot-smoking little brothers of mainstream dailies, keep on publishing. And in many cities they have become something their founders likely never intended or even imagined: the last remaining print journalism voices in their communities and, in some cases, the de facto papers of record.
By Ricardo Grinspun, Canadian Dimension
Roughly one-third of Americans still attribute global warming primarily to natural causes rather than human activity. That figure reflects decades of disinformation amplified by largely unregulated social media platforms. Now, AI is helping flood those platforms with limitless amounts of fabricated text, images, audio, and video, further eroding trust in evidence and expertise.