According to recently released discovery materials, Meta directly targeted Jonathan Haidt by trying to stir up academics to oppose him. The odd thing is that many of us scholars who disagree with him knew nothing about this and weren’t not involved in it. And so now scholars like the amazing Candice Odgers are being doubted about the sincerity of their critique. WTAF upside down world are we living it?

What’s super frustrating is that many scholars in the teens-tech-mental health space are repeatedly accused of fabricating research or being corporate shills when our research is politically inconvenient. I know that I have been. Repeatedly. And it sucks.

When I was still in graduate school, I was asked to serve on the Internet Safety Technical Task Force. One of my responsibilities was to oversee the research effort. I worked with other scholars to track down all studies that focused on content, contact, and conduct related harms involving the internet. The politicians were primarily interested in the question of pedophiles. When I provided the report to then Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, he told me to go find different data. He did not like what I had found. I didn’t know what to say.

Predation is real. It’s devastating. But it’s a more complex dynamic than most people’s mental image allows for. And when it comes to internet-enabled predation, the biggest risk is not teenagers using the latest social media site. The biggest risk is single moms using online dating apps. Pedophiles seek out these women to get access to their children. It’s sick. But no one wants to hear that. They want to focus on the digital tools young people use.

After our report was published, I started getting calls from journalists. I earnestly and naively responded to all of them. One of the journalists was from PBS Frontline. She called me up repeatedly, drilling me on questions about arguments in the report. I responded by providing study after study to every inquiry, pointing her to different researchers who were experts on different parts of this puzzle. After a few weeks of this, I got what would be the last call from her. She started out by apologizing to me.

Unbeknownst to me, some of Richard Blumenthal’s ardent supporters for his Senatorial campaign were outraged that I dared to challenge the politician’s arguments about internet safety. They were determined to prove that I was falsifying data on behalf of the tech industry. The Frontline reporter told me she was assigned to uncover my duplicitousness. She had concluded I hadn’t done anything but report on the scientific insights of the field. She spiked the story, but she warned me that I had pissed off some very powerful people and I would probably have to deal with being demonized going forward for standing up for research. Ugh.

Ironically, I first started truly despising Facebook-the-company while I was working on that task force. I got to watch up close how the company built a coordinated campaign against MySpace, intentionally creating the impression that MySpace was dangerous while Facebook was safe. And I witnessed teenagers process this through the language of racism and classism, prompting me to write a very controversial essay that turned into my paper “White Flight in Networked Publics?” I was fascinated – and disgusted – by the executive who seemed to do the dirty work on behalf of the CEO and COO, unbeknownst to others in the company. I called him the bulldog. The bulldog continued to harass all sorts of different people.

These days, I have absolutely nothing nice to say about Meta-the-company despite knowing a few amazing people who work there. I think the company is unethical to the core. And the products have enshittified so badly that they’re unrecognizable compared to what teenagers used to use. Hence my argument that “Social Media is Now Parasocial Media.” But I still stand by my research on teens and the research of others who have done rigorous analyses putting teens’ lives into context. Teenagers live in the world we create for them – and they use what’s available to them, regardless of how they feel about it. In the past, teens turned to Facebook to socialize and make sense of public life. Today, Facebook is dead to teens and Instagram feels more like some sketchy version of MTV. Socialization is on group chats, some of which unfold on WhatsApp. But most teens have nothing nice to say about Facebook.

Many teenagers in our contemporary world are struggling. I’ve gotten to see that upfront through my work at Crisis Text Line, which I adore. And I’ve gotten to consistently witness how the problems that they face cannot be explained by their tech use. Because of this, removing tech from their lives will not solve the major problems. And for some, like many of the teens who text Crisis Text Line in their darkest moments, losing access to a cell phone will eradicate an essential lifeline.

I have no interest in defending tech companies, but I am deeply committed to defending teenagers’ agency and choices in the world that we have given them. I am determined to make sure that those teens who don’t have supportive parents have pathways to get help. And my research has repeatedly led me to conclude that when we fail to empower teenagers to transition into adult worlds, we do them more harm. And when we focus on the tech, we fail to help those who need the help the most.

Many of the problems that I have with tech use are actually about adult tech use. Too many adults treat their phones as a pacifier to help them self-regulate. They’ve taught this bad habit to their kids. Too many adults fail to role model healthy sociality digitally and in-person friendship. Too many adults use their phones to be distracted from their own children. And then we’re surprised by the mirrors that teens offer back at us. “I learned it from watching you, dad.”

What kills me in the contemporary teens-and-tech debate is that there’s no space for actual research or critical nuance. You’re either opposed to the tech companies or in their pockets. And this week’s absurd discovery reinforces this infuriating polarity, painting those of us who are critical of Jonathan Haidt as being corporate shills. I find this especially frustrating because I did work in tech for a lot of my career. I played the role of friction inside many companies (although never Meta). I repeatedly got threatened by tech executives for challenging corporate mantras or providing research that contradicted their interests – and yet I persisted. Cuz many tech companies are far more complicated than people realize.

Still, I’ve had to grit and bear as I am attacked by other scholars for taking money from tech (as if any money in late-stage capitalism is clean money). And I had to stomach calls from representatives of the National Academies that I can’t even talk with their committee members because Jonathan Haidt told them that I was a corporate shill. And I’ve had to not weigh in on numerous recent debates because my peers and news outlets tell me I am tainted. In this political climate, I am unable to convince people that my research stems from the lessons I learned from teens, not what I learned from tech. I’ve mostly shrugged. But when journalists started going after Candice, I lost my mind and felt the need to share my story. The idea that she is being painted as a corporate shill is ludicrous.

Cuz here’s the thing… It IS possible to despise the tech companies AND understand why teenagers use their products and find value from doing so. Listen to teenagers; they get these contradictions. Their hatred of the tech companies is growing exponentially even as they use the tools those companies provide. (You should see their attitudes towards AI companies. Oooh-whee…) It’s also possible to care about kids’ mental health AND think that the solution doesn’t start and stop with tech. And it’s possible to do rigorous research AND discover that tech isn’t the biggest monster in teens’ lives that anti-tech advocates think it is.

Truth be told, I’d have no problem if certain social media platforms would be banned for everyone. I think that many of the products in this space have devolved into garbage. My objection is a teen-specific ban. I oppose legal controls of teenagers because adults are trying to cope with the guilt about their own failings. We are living through an era of anxious parents. It’s heartbreaking the costs of this anxiety.

Of course, if politicians want to implement an age-specific ban to target those most harmed by social media platforms, I’d be totally fine with banning elders from social media. That would do society a lot of good. Just think of what it would mean in terms of identity theft and fraud, not to mention disinformation. But that’s the rub. We believe that adults’ freedom of choice needs to never be constrained, but that it’s perfectly OK to micromanage teenagers. THIS is what I object to. I believe that teenagers deserve rights and agency. I think it’s utterly asinine that the United States never ratified the UN Rights of the Child. This doesn’t make me a corporate shill. This makes me an advocate for teenagers.

As I wrote over a decade ago, we’ve made ridiculous decisions that have undermined teenagers’ ability to socialize and connect with friends. And it keeps getting worse. Teens have lost the right to roam. In many parts of the country, they’re overscheduled and have nowhere to go to hang out with friends besides each other’s homes. Teenagers don’t have sustained access to mental health services (and they often have to go through their parents’ insurance to get access). They’re living through a polycrisis. And what they’re seeing in the world of adults is depressing. There’s a lot that we can do to help young people. But much of it starts locally. Much of it starts with adults checking their own behaviors. Much of it starts with intentionally investing in the social lives of young people. Giving them options. Creating space for them. Ensuring that they have robust social fabrics. Tech is a relief valve, and an increasingly terrible one. But taking tech away won’t do squat to address the underlying issues. And, worse, banning social media is basically an advertisement for it. Cuz right now, social media is dying a slow death among teens cuz it sucks so much. But teens are still looking for spaces in which they can connect and socialize and make sense of the world around them. What will it take for us to actually invest in young people?

It was Auditor General Day yesterday, and there were a bunch of reports released, including three from the Environment Commissioner, who is in her office. And so, this is what they found:

• The CBSA’s new digital management software, CARM, is still glitchy two years later and they spend a lot of time on manual workarounds.
• FINTRAC continues to be plagued by reporting backlogs that aren’t going to be cleared until next year at least.
• National Defence didn’t manage their ammunition inventory effectively.
• Ways to improve the dental care programme after it exceeded its budget.
• The government still won’t outline their plan to meet their 2030 emissions targets.
• The procurement process for new call centre technology has been a mess.
• Health Canada isn’t following up on high-risk pesticides identified with monitoring.
• PHAC has not effectively managed their emergency stockpiles.
• The government stopped work on banning thermal coal exports without saying so.

There is a common theme about a lack of oversight in many of these reports, and while a lot of these issues are from the Trudeau era, I have observed that there was an issue with a lack of proper management of government departments, where the attitude seemed to be that these civil servants were left to manage their own affairs, which they didn’t necessarily do effectively. Whether that’s because ministers didn’t feel they were qualified to because they were constantly reporting to the Centre (meaning the chief of staff) was a possibility, or perhaps it was because they didn’t realise that it was their responsibility to do so. I wonder if it will get worse under Carney, however, as ministers are preoccupied with trying to use digital asbestos to “find efficiencies,” or because major projects and decisions are being shunted off to Crown corporations to manage them instead, which are more arm’s-length, and as a result get less scrutiny. We’ll have to see, but the trend is not encouraging.

The government also released their first National Security Strategy in twenty years, and it was a slim, high-level document that had very few details, but outlined five broad themes, including a focus on economic security. There is also concern outlined about “frontier” digital asbestos being a major threat. Philippe Lagassé considers the defence-related items, while Stephanie Carvin has her initial thoughts here.

Carney says we are "forging new partnerships with allies that are anchored in our common values."What are our "common values" with China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Türkiye, and Modi's India? If the common value is making money, then he should just come out and say so.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-10-30T00:54:22.514Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-10-29T19:08:01.843Z

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian drone killed fourteen after hitting a rail platform in Dnipro. There were other attacks on Kyiv and Kharkiv. De-mining operations around Oleshky have completed so the relief mission and possible evacuation can begin, while president Zelenskyy warns of intelligence about another ballistic missile attack.

Noteworthy:

• The Logic has an excellent reality check about why even a Democrat sweep of the US midterms won’t actually do much to improve the trade relationship.
• Justin Ling recaps some of the Trump erraticism ahead of the midterms.

What is there to opt out of for dental care? It's 100% a federally-funded, privately-administered insurance programme. It has nothing to do with the province. And pharmacare is pretty much a dead letter federally anyway, because most of the premiers, including Alberta's, balked.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-10-29T14:06:47.422Z

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Canada is building closer ties with the European Union shortly after one of the bloc’s member states moved to expel a journalist in what is being condemned as a politically motivated deportation.

On October 13, Russian-born journalist Leonid Ragozin received a letter from the immigration ministry of Latvia, a country he had lived in for 12 years, informing him that his residency permit was being revoked.

The ministry said it was doing so on the basis of Ragozin being declared “persona non grata,” and explained that he would not be allowed to re-enter the country.

In the notice sent to Ragozin and seen by The Maple, the ministry also cited sections of Latvian immigration law that allow the authorities to cancel a residency permit if the holder has posed a security threat to Latvia, “publicly praised” a war crime or crime against humanity, or supported actors seeking to undermine democratic states.

It did not point to any specific statements or actions allegedly taken by Ragozin.

Ragozin is a staunch critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, he has also criticized Western countries, including the United States and its allies, for how they have handled the conflict and questioned their motivations for supporting Ukraine.

This has prompted some right-wing Latvian politicians to claim that Ragozin spreads “Russian chauvinism.”

Ragozin has also investigated ties between Latvian politicians and neo-Nazis in Ukraine, including those connected to the infamous Azov movement, prompting those involved to launch threats and smears against him.

In an interview with The Maple, Ragozin said Latvia’s cancellation of his residency permit bears the hallmarks of a politically motivated deportation.

“I’m receiving threats from major internet personalities,” he said. “They inform me privately by DMing, and also they announce it openly on Twitter that they will basically do their best to destroy my life in the next country where I find myself.”

It’s a case that starkly contradicts Prime Minister Mark Carney’s idealistic rhetoric about the European Union and Canada having “shared values” in democracy and the rule of law ahead of this week’s Canada-EU Summit in Montreal.

During a keynote speech Thursday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made a pitch to establish a partnership with Canada “that comes closer to membership than anything we’ve done before.”

Ragozin’s case also raises questions about Canada’s military presence in Latvia, where Canadian troops are said to be defending “freedom, democracy and peace” as part of a NATO mission on the Russian border.

Years of Smears

Ragozin does not match the profile of a Kremlin propagandist. As a journalist, he spent years working for Western media outlets, including the BBC. In 2013, he began freelancing and became focused on the seismic political changes unfolding in Ukraine.

He moved to Latvia on March 16, 2014, the day Russia held a referendum on whether the Crimean Peninsula should remain a part of Ukraine or join Russia, which annexed the territory two days later.

“My initial reaction, my stance on the conflict that I had in 2014, was that it is an aggression against a neighboring country, and that the occupation is illegal,” he said.

“It is still my position on the conflict.”

“However, over those 12 years, I had this process in which a pile of questions was rising regarding the handling of this conflict by Western powers, by the United States, first of all, and about the motivation.”

Ragozin also investigated links between Latvia’s right-wing National Alliance party and neo-Nazis. In 2019, he reported that party members had travelled to Kyiv and met with Russian neo-Nazis, who were holding the annual festival of National Socialist Black Metal.

“Since early 2020, I became a target of a relentless smear campaign,” he explained. One politician, he said, issued what he interpreted to be a death threat against him.

He was also targeted by Ukrainian personalities after he investigated the assassination of journalist Pavel Sheremet, who was killed by car bomb in Kyiv in 2016. 

During a collaborative investigation with the Ukrainian media outlet Zaborona, Ragozin uncovered evidence suggesting that the killing of Sheremet was likely carried out by individuals tied to Ukraine’s security services and organized crime.

A Political Football

The attacks against Ragozin ramped up during Latvia’s recent parliamentary elections. Two senior political candidates openly debated on Twitter about who should be responsible for deporting him.

“In the process of this discussion, senior members of National Alliance said openly that the interior minister, who is a representative from their party, could not deport me because if he did, then the matter would go into courts, and they said openly Latvia would lose the case in courts because, you know, there’s nothing against me,” said Ragozin.

The members suggested the foreign minister could declare Ragozin a “persona non grata,” a tool that is primarily used to expel foreign diplomats.

Three days after the election, Latvia’s Foreign Minister Baiba Braže announced that she was proclaiming an unnamed Russian citizen persona non grata. Ragozin then received notice of the revocation of his residency permit nearly one week later.

In an emailed statement to The Maple, Latvia’s foreign ministry said: “We reject the publicly circulated allegation that L. Ragozin has been expelled or deported from Latvia, nor is he being politically or extrajudicially persecuted.”

“In accordance with well-established principles of international law, Latvia has the sovereign right to regulate the presence of foreign nationals within its territory, including by placing individuals on the list of persons prohibited from entering Latvia.”

When The Maple told the ministry it had seen a copy of the government notice sent to Ragozin, the ministry declined to provide further comment.

Neither Canada nor the E.U. has commented on Latvia’s moves to deport Ragozin. Global Affairs Canada did not respond to an emailed request for comment from The Maple.

“I find this extremely regretful,” said Ragozin. “Most of all because I interpret this situation as an attempt to undermine the rule of law and freedom of speech in the European Union.”

Ragozin said he believes the threat that Russia poses to Latvia and other Baltic states “is real.”

“However, when it comes to domestic politics, the threat mongering, the war mongering, is a tool of political business,” he explained.

“It is a tool that is being used by politicians who I essentially believe to be bad actors, villains, in order to get more votes, more political support, and I believe economic benefits as well.”

A group called “Independent Journalists in Exile” wrote to two United Nations special rapporteurs on October 12 expressing concerns about the Latvian government’s moves to expel Ragozin.

The letter warned of “broader consequences for independent journalists who have left Russia and established their professional and personal lives in European democracies.”

“Such measures risk creating a chilling effect throughout the community of exiled journalists, encouraging self-censorship and discouraging legitimate public debate.”

Latvia has taken similar actions against other Russian citizens in recent years. Last year, left-wing activist Vladislav Romanenko received a deportation notice from the Latvian government, reportedly on the sole basis of his political activities.

Serbia’s students recently built one of Europe’s largest protest movements. But you probably haven’t heard much about it.

Last November, in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city, a newly renovated train station canopy collapsed. It killed 15 people, including children (later rising to 16).

Investigations soon revealed the cause: widespread corruption and negligence. Politicians had ignored warnings about the dangerous construction — just to pose for the cameras at its opening. “We’d all heard that corruption kills,” Serbian activist Nina Petrov told me in a recent interview, “but this time we saw it clearly.”

Instead of the usual angry demonstrations, students took an unusual first step: a silent memorial at exactly 11:52 AM every day — the time of the tragedy. These 15-minute vigils quickly became a powerful ritual, spreading nationwide.

Then came the regime’s mistake: violence. “The first blockade started because regime-linked thugs attacked students during our silent protests,” Nina explained. “Everything was recorded. Once those men were identified, the students decided to block their universities. Then it spread [to] every campus, even private ones.”

That violence — and another shocking incident where a student protester was run over by a car — sparked outrage, bringing more people onto the streets. Within weeks, a quiet memorial had grown into Serbia’s largest protest in decades, forcing high-profile resignations and shaking the foundations of Aleksandar Vučić’s authoritarian regime.

So, how exactly did they build and sustain this momentum? Here’s Nina’s explanation of their key tactics, edited for clarity:

Put the hive mind to work

Serbia’s students reject the usual leader-focused model. Instead, they run open, direct-democracy sessions called plenums. Moderators help run the sessions, but everyone can speak; everyone has equal power.

“We have local plenums at each university faculty,” Nina said. “Then there’s a roof structure where delegates share decisions from their plenums. Delegates don’t debate or decide alone—they just represent.”

This keeps their movement united and disciplined. And it’s intentionally slow: “Taking our time helps us avoid knee-jerk reactions.”

Even the structure itself isn’t fixed. Nina told me, “No rule is set in stone. If there’s a need for a better model, we’ll invent one.”

Still, it’s not rigid. Some workgroups, like media, act independently. For example, she explained, “Our media team runs the student blockade account without asking permission for every post.”

Play the future, not the present

The movement quickly grew bigger than just opposing Vučić. They realised early on that removing one corrupt leader isn’t enough.

“This isn’t just about Vučić,” Nina said. “We’re protesting to build a new system that won’t allow this scale of corruption again. We’ve archived everything we’ve done — how we made decisions, organised logistics, built support — so others can replicate it. We want everyone, from communities to factory workers, to learn this model.”

“I hope this becomes the new culture in Serbia,” she added. “Not just voting on election day, but being active citizens every day.”

Get specific. Stay accountable.

Movements succeed when demands are specific, measurable, and verifiable. The Serbian students identified four concrete goals from the start, tracked carefully by experts.

“These four demands have stayed the same from the beginning,” said Nina. We have workgroups checking progress constantly, deciding exactly what it takes for each demand to be fulfilled.”

Escalate with care

They didn’t jump immediately to mass marches. First came the silent vigils: simple, moving, and easy to join, these actions helped keep the victims – and the corruption that led to their deaths – top of mind.

Then, 24-hour roadblocks. Each step tested and built public resolve.

“We always took it one step further,” Nina said. “We’d propose something bigger, then wait to see if people followed. And they did.”

Let violence backfire (and stay disciplined)

When the regime responded with brutality, the students stayed nonviolent — and carefully documented everything.

“After every big protest, we clean the streets,” Nina said. “We don’t fight the police. It’s not their fault; they’re part of the same broken system. This discipline makes the regime’s violence backfire.”

Grow your coalition

Real power comes from uniting diverse societal groups behind common goals. The students didn’t stay isolated. They consciously reached out to farmers, teachers, taxi drivers, even bikers. They brought everyone into the fight, no matter their background.

“Every student protest is led by students, but we coordinate with everyone—farmers, teachers, bikers,” Nina said. “And we actively support their struggles, too.”

Importantly, they didn’t judge Vučić’s supporters: “In some villages, people are still paid to attend his rallies. Many are just surviving; some are blackmailed. We never judge.”

They also refused distractions. “We’re provoked daily, but we don’t waste time answering every accusation from Vučić. We focus on our message instead—mainly through Instagram, because that’s where everyone is.”

Building something new

These students aren’t just fighting corruption. They’re actively creating an alternative, something every activist worldwide can learn from.

“We’re not claiming it’s a blueprint,” said Nina. “It’s a case study. It works for us. Maybe it can work for others.”