China analyst @ASPI_CTS 🦋 Find me: fergus.bsky.social 📨 Anon tips/feedback: admonymous.co/fergus-ryan 📱 Signal: fergus.99
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What if you could test propaganda on thousands of synthetic Australians, Americans and others before publishing it?
Chinese state-linked researchers are trying to do something close to that.
My latest: aspistrategist.org.au/china-…
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ICYMI 🔊
We’re looking for a China Analyst or Senior Analyst to join ASPI’s high-performing China team.
Don’t miss the opportunity to join one of the Indo-Pacific’s most influential think tanks and contribute to globally recognised research.
🔗 Apply: bit.ly/4jlyegA
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China is building an AI system for tailoring its foreign propaganda | @fryan | bit.ly/4rnqcGi
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JOB ALERT 🔊
ASPI is looking for an experienced China analyst or senior analyst to join the team.
The role will focus on China’s foreign and security policy, defence and military affairs, Australia–China relations and China’s impact on the region.
🔗: bit.ly/4z2utBF
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A UN-backed fact-finding mission found reasonable grounds to believe the United States committed war crimes in two strikes in Iran on 28 February.
ohchr.org/sites/default/file…
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Universal Pictures, which has the worldwide rights to Alex Gibney’s Elon Musk documentary outside of North America, “appears to be having second thoughts on a documentary it paid a significant sum to acquire.”
hollywoodreporter.com/news/p…
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'Forgive me my pedantry, but if Australia is going to regulate social media algorithms, we should be precise about what an algorithm actually is,' writes @fryan. aspistrategist.org.au/austra…
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A lot of attention has gone into how AI can be used for propaganda. I’m not sure we’ve thought as hard about how powerful it could be as a new form of political visual satire.
Ideas that once lived in an essay or cartoon can now be rendered as vivid, pseudo-realistic nightmares.
中国教育被具像化以后是什么效果？
9月9日，AI设计者Mihrolla在社交媒体上发布了一则超现实主义风格视频，展示中国教育现状：
视频中学生的大脑被当成精密的机器，接受家长的微调和校准；学生连跑步都要排成队拿着书本背诵；学生要像机器人一样背负沉重的学业负担；讲台上写着思想自由，但每个学生的头脑却被笼子囚禁；服装、发型不合要求，甚至先迈左腿进校门，也要拉出来示众；学生用履带车拖着繁重的作业，步履艰难；奖状化作学生的翅膀，却在笼子里飞不出去；教室里，考高分的学生坐在空中，得低分的学生则坐在地下……
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In @CapitalBrief, @fryan argues Australians should have more choice over how their social media feeds are curated under the federal government’s proposed digital duty of care, pointing to @bluesky as one model for giving users more control.
📰 Read 👇
capitalbrief.com/article/the…
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Gaza Doc ‘NAZA,’ From ‘No Other Land’ Directors, Earns Record-Breaking 24.5-Minute Venice Ovation variety.com/2026/film/festiv…
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You can’t really “turn off” the algorithm.
A reverse-chronological feed is an algorithm too!
The real question is who gets to choose our feeds.
My argument, outlined in @CapitalBrief, is that we should be able to choose who designs the algorithms that shape our feeds.
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🎁 Gift link: capitalbrief.com/article/the…
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Maduro is gone. Venezuela’s surveillance state isn’t.
Before he fell, Caracas signed for Chinese AI from iFlytek. Washington has a rare chance to stop the AI layer before it’s built.
aspistrategist.org.au/maduro…
Report: aspi.org.au/report/warning-s…
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🚨 NEW REPORT 🚨
In ‘Warning signals’, @fryan, @BethanyAllenEbr and Nathan Attrill et al. warn that 🇻🇪 is in a position to become one of the first countries outside 🇨🇳 to import Beijing’s new generation of AI systems for surveillance and control.
📕: bit.ly/3SXFN2r
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Maduro is gone, but his surveillance state has a Chinese AI upgrade on order | @fryan | bit.ly/4yrK3WP
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A striking piece from Li Yuan on the growing difficulty the Chinese party-state is having imposing “positive energy” on an increasingly pessimistic online public.
nytimes.com/2026/09/07/busin…
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At the risk of being pedantic, what exactly do people mean by an option to “opt out of the algorithm” when a reverse-chronological timeline is itself an algorithm?
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On the 125th anniversary of Australia’s national flag, someone accidentally flew two New Zealand flags outside Parliament. (via Politico)
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