Nina Jankowicz Profile picture
Jan 24 7 tweets 2 min read
I'm growing increasingly frustrated with the out of touch, abstracted discourse about Ukraine..

I lived and worked in Ukraine. I have Ukrainian heritage. And while that gives me some insight to the situation, it's not about me. It's about 40+ million Ukrainians. 🧵
It's about pensioners like this woman @ColborneMichael & I spoke to in Kryivih Rih in 2019, who was selling in the rain tulips at 11 cents each to make ends meet. Her government pension barely covered her apartment.
She was looking forward to making her voice heard in the upcoming election. (Her oblast, Zelensky's own, voted overwhelmingly for Ze.)

The Kremlin—which has repeatedly decried the legitimacy of two consecutive Ukrainian governments—would deny her that right.
It's about young people, too, like these university students from Ivano-Frankivsk, who all had dreams of a modern, European Ukraine, that would afford them opportunities to study abroad, travel, and build businesses back at home.
Same goes for the activists working to preserve Ukraine's history and culture; to rid the country of corruption; to build a bugeoning tech industry.
I could share with you a bunch of pictures of Ukraine's sights, of its blooming rapeseed fields under bright blue skies, but when I think about the situation on Ukraine's borders it's the Ukrainians I've met that I worry about, that I'm so frustrated are being written...
...out of debates about military aid and sanctions and alleged "propagandistic euphemisms."

They deserve to have the future they want. They deserve to live in peace. Just remember that next time you send off your hot take about the US or its allies should or shouldn't do.

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More from @wiczipedia

Jan 24
This isn't new. Lethal aid is a distinct term from military aid—which can come in the form of training, for instance—and other types of aid (humanitarian, economic, democracy support).

This isn't some sort of massive conspiracy... just a somewhat jargony term in the aid biz.
It also has an inverse! Non-lethal aid! Imagine that!
These tweets brought to you by a very tired Ukraine expert 💁🏻‍♀️
Read 7 tweets
Jan 24
Good morning! I know there is a lot of ~stuff~ happening, but some good news for your feed: I got the full cover design for HOW TO BE A WOMAN ONLINE and it is 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Let's take a look, shall we? 🧵

(Preorder here: bloomsbury.com/us/how-to-be-a…)
.@Alyssa_Milano, @DamianCollins, and @lyzl have all read the book and had lovely things to say 🥲

They call HOW TO BE A WOMAN ONLINE:

"Essential"
"Important"
"Precise and clear"

So grateful for their leadership and support.
Also, I would like you all to meet someone very special.

I'm pleased to introduce you to...

Emoji Nina. She adorns the back cover and the spine of this slim new volume. It can fit in your purse, and Emoji Nina will be there to fend off any trolls or jerks who come your way.
Read 4 tweets
Jan 22
ICYMI: I’m pregnant with my first child, and was shocked to encounter the manipulation and outright disinformation that exists on pregnancy apps. I wrote about it for @WIRED: wired.com/story/pregnanc…
There are a few things I’d like to address that have come up in the 24 hours that the piece has been out. A short thread:
It’s interesting—though not surprising—to see who’s engaging with this piece. I’ve gotten a lot of notes from other young mothers and women who are tired of the way the internet and society overlooks our needs, and expects us, as I write, “to grin and bear it.”
Read 11 tweets
Jan 10
I can't believe I need to say this, but... no.

(a thread.)
Every time someone makes an argument that the West should give Russia a taste of its own medicine, 100 government-paid trolls and thousands more individuals who are happy to amplify Kremlin rhetoric file that sentiment away in their "whataboutist" files. (/2)
This paragraph conflates the difference between strategic communications based in fact—ie truthful reporting on Russian missteps in foreign wars past and present—and the false and misleading narratives that have primarily been the terrain of authoritarians, not democrats.
Read 10 tweets
Jan 10
Well, I’m up far too early, so I may as well tweet about the US-Russia discussions happening in #Geneva today.

I’ve been reluctant to comment too much on the growing tensions; I’m wary of allowing Russia to set the narrative and that’s what we’ve been seeing so far.
Russia is the party creating this escalation; Russia instigated the war in Ukraine in the first place; Russia alone can stop it.

Any discussion of the talks without mentioning those facts, but underlining Russia’s “demands” or supposed reasoning for the troop buildup…
on Ukraine’s border is allowing Russia to set the narrative. End of story.

That’s why I’ve been glad to see US officials firmly reject Moscow’s demands for security guarantees regarding Ukraine’s NATO membership and US forces in Central Europe.
Read 5 tweets
Oct 25, 2021
"Zuckerberg testified last year before Congress that the company removes 94 percent of the hate speech it finds. But in internal documents, researchers estimated that the company was removing less than 5 percent of all hate speech on Facebook." washingtonpost.com/technology/202…
This is a key point that researchers have been underlining for years. Facebook is often touting that it removes huge amounts of hate speech *that it finds*, but has never publicly admitted that there is a large universe of posts that never cross moderators' screens.
This is a key point in #MalignCreativity, the study I led @TheWilsonCenter around gendered abuse in the 2020 election. Because abusers are good at adapting to platform rules to avoid detection, their violative posts are often not found by platform systems. wilsoncenter.org/publication/ma…
Read 4 tweets

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