Nina Jankowicz Profile picture
Aug 11, 2020 8 tweets 2 min read Read on X
Americans take the US Postal Service for granted. Having lived in two countries where mail is chronically unreliable (to put it diplomatically), I do not.

Here are a few stories about my misadventures with mail in Russia and Ukraine.
The first time I lived in Russia, ten years ago, my then-boyfriend (now husband) sent me a Valentine's Day card. It never made it to me at my university address; eventually, it was sent back to him as undeliverable after more than two months of globe trotting.
I tried to send postcards; like many Russian state services the post office keeps a ridiculous schedule and it took me a few tries to find it open. Triumphant, I waited in line and asked for some international stamps, only to be told they weren't sold at that time/day.
I recently sent review copies of my book to colleagues in Moscow. They did not ever make it there.
Things were slightly better in Ukraine- the post office was a bit more predictable and Nova Poshta, Ukraine's UPS-type service, was fairly reliable. But even they had trouble delivering a package to an American neighbor's former exchange student.
When I was packing to leave Ukraine I faced a conundrum with all the books I had acquired; they made my already full-to-bursting suitcases too heavy. I didn't want to entrust them to the post office, and private delivery service was going to cost hundreds...
...take a long time, or force me to travel to the outskirts of the city for service that was unreliable and slow and wouldn't deliver directly to my house in the US. I ended up finding a foreign service friend who was also moving and willing to take my books in their shipment.
Moral of the story: the USPS provides a public service. Affordable, reliable mail. Some people cannot afford UPS, DHL, or FedEx- USPS is the only option. It also reliably serves rural locations. And it will be important in delivering our votes this November. #SaveUSPS

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More from @wiczipedia

Sep 4
Waking up to this news in Australia, which hits upon a theme I've been repeating throughout my presentations here:

Information laundering is alive and well, and one of the most powerful tools disinformation actors have in their arsenals as we careen toward November. 1/
What is information laundering? It's when bad actors obscure the initial source of information through another individual or organization to make it seem more trustworthy or get around restrictions (like, for instance, FARA, or political ad disclosures on social media). 2/
(I wrote a little tongue in cheek parody about it in 2021 that the right wing endlessly ridiculed, but I stand by every word: It's how you hide a little lie. 3/)
Read 12 tweets
Aug 27
Let’s talk about Mark Zuckerberg’s letter to the House Judiciary Committee, in which he alleges that he felt that the White House “repeatedly pressured his teams to censor” content.

This is nothing more than a cynical political ploy at self preservation. 1/
Jim Jordan and the right have been alleging censorship for years. Why does Zuckerberg release this letter now, three months before the election? To signal to Congressional republicans that he’s not against them. It worked for Musk- why shouldn’t Zuckerberg try it out now too? 2/
Interestingly, if these allegations were real, Jordan could have made them himself. He has in his possession dozens of interviews and depositions with tech workers, including Facebook employees, who say they did not feel coerced by the White House. 3/
Read 7 tweets
Aug 14
Spoke with @Channel4News about the changes on this platform since it got a new owner.

Lots of the replies challenging the quote here asking me to name a single example of offline violence after Musk amplified disinfo. Challenge accepted. Here's just a few: 1/
Former Twitter executive Yoel Roth was forced to leave his home after credible threats of violence when Musk enabled the Twitter filed and falsely alleged Roth was sympathetic to pedophilia 2/

cnn.com/2022/12/12/tec…
Australian eSafety Regulator Julie Inman Grant's children were doxxed after Musk tweeted about her for *doing her job* and requesting that Twitter remove a video of a stabbing that had the potential to generate follow-on attacks 3/

abc.net.au/news/2024-06-0…
Read 7 tweets
Jul 21
In 2020 I led a study on gendered abuse and disinfo against women political candidates. We found 336k pieces of abuse & disinfo targeting 13 candidates; 78% of that targeted Kamala Harris. After Biden’s endorsement, here are some narratives and tropes we should look out for: (1/)
1. Sexualized narratives, claiming Harris “slept her way to the top,” or that she is sexually promiscuous. In 2020 we found that users engaging with this narrative were more likely to engage with other abuse and disinfo. They attempted to undermine her fitness for office (2/)

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2. Transphobic narratives are also often employed against women in public life; in 2020, users claimed Harris couldn’t have risen to a position of power without having secretly been a man. They falsely alleged she had been a man named “Kamal Aroush” before transitioning. (3/)
Read 9 tweets
May 28
I didn’t want to have to send a letter like this, which is why I wasted hours last week answering Shellenberger’s inane questions in hopes he’d do actual reporting. Instead he shoved my quotes next to allegations for which he has no source but his own overactive imagination. 1/
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Not to be outdone, Taibbi also made sweeping & false statements of fact. I guess when you have nearly half a million subscribers frothing at the mouth for your next tall tale you have to keep them paying their subscription fee somehow. Gotta keep that Substack $$ flowing! 2/
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IMO, there are at least 2 other motives here
1: these fine gentlemen are trying to keep the folks who work on disinformation occupied with anything but their actual research. Long lists of absurd questions, the answers to which they do not care about, are a great way to do so. 3/
Read 11 tweets
Mar 22, 2023
Dear lord. There is so much wrong with how this study was conducted. Let us count the ways. (THREAD)
1. As we found in our #MalignCreativity report @TheWilsonCenter, there is an entire movement on Twitter and other sites by abusers to evade detection from AI / content moderators, so a list of "300 commonly used English-language slurs" ain't conna cut it. wilsoncenter.org/publication/ma…
2. @Twitter's focus on impressions shows they are not interested in actually reducing harm, just reducing how it *looks.* It doesn't matter if a tweet calling for your rape and hanging gets 10 impressions or 10000, they both are harmful to the target.
Read 8 tweets

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