AI Afghanistan
“Women in Afghanistan have been forced to turn to artificial intelligence for friendship after the Taliban government restricted their rights across the country.”...
Inside the Islamic State prisons
Guardian, Inside the Islamic State prisons the world forgot – podcast, 7 Mar 2025 “Michael Safi travelled to north-east Syria to speak to IS foreign fighters imprisoned there. And discovered...
ChatGPT Numbers
ChatGPT just gained 200 million users in the last two months. "By November 2023, ChatGPT had reached another milestone of 100 million weekly active users, which grew to 300...
Chatbot’s potential impact
Grok 3 (+) under discussion in Metro: Jen Mills, Metro, Elon Musk’s chatbot which has phone sex with users ‘will hit global birth rates’, 4 Mar 2025 “An AI...
‘AI Deepfake Terrorism‘
Bryon Kaye, Reuters, Google reports scale of complaints about AI deepfake terrorism content to Australian regulator, 5 Mar 2025 “In its report, Google said it received 258 user reports...
Syria report
An excellent and powerful report from Paraic O’Brien in #Syria on @channel4news.bsky.social this evening youtu.be/-9arRFAa5wk?…...
Islamic Algorithms
Please excuse the commercial break: Here’s a word cloud for my book Islamic Algorithms (details in the sidebar).
‘Muawiyah‘ TV Series
Middle East Eye, Muawiya: The Ramadan series about an early Islamic ruler that’s causing a stir, 3 Mar 2025 “A TV show centred on the life of an early...
Iran Ups Media Budget
Shabnam von Hein, DW, Iran boosts budget for state propaganda, 3 Mar 2025 “According to a report by the parliamentary research center, the share of the Islamic Republic of Iran...
Hajj logistics
Opinion/analysis on #hajj logistics Dilshad Ali, RNS, Saudis’ new Hajj system is making the pilgrimage safer, if less accessible, 3 Mar 2025 “One feature of Hajj that no one...