I have been in Ljubljana to attend the COST GRADE project meeting. This project is one of the most focused and well-managed COST projects I have participated in. You can find the program at the link above. One of the project’s outputs is an exhibition at the Museum of Computer History here in Ljubljana, Slovenia. … Read more
With another decree, we are back to business: –– Decision on the Repeal of Presidential Decree No. 11384 of May 21, 2026, Regarding the Revocation of the Operating License of Istanbul Bilgi University, to Which a Trustee Was Appointed for Its Founding Foundation (Decision No. 11387)
All of us received the news through an official gazette announcement. Istanbul Bilgi University’s operating license was revoked by a midnight presidential decree published in the Official Gazette. Just like that, more than 900 academics, 600 personnel, and around 20,000 students are left upset. After 22 years at Bilgi, I do not know what the … Read more
Last week, I was invited to a conversation by Ziya Taşkent, who organizes monthly talks on “culture.” The talk is in Turkish, but I present a summary of this talk in English: Digital Culture and Everyday Life Digital culture is deeply intertwined with popular culture; both are undergoing transformation in the realms of communication and … Read more
AI Tools for Journalists Workshop in Adana On Saturday, May 16, 2026, I took part in the “AI Tools for Journalists” workshop organized by TGS Academy in Adana. The workshop focused on how journalists can use basic AI tools in their everyday professional routines. We discussed practical uses of AI in news research, text production, … Read more
“There Is No Neutral Machine: The Necessary Contribution of Social Sciences and Humanities to AI” Keynote Speech — Erkan Saka Critical AI Studies Conference, Istanbul Bilgi University, 9 May 2026 [Formatted by using Claude.ai] To understand AI, we must stop treating it as a purely technical or mathematical achievement. And to explain why this matters, … Read more
Whose Truth Gets Optimized? AI and the New Epistemic Order This is an edited version of my keynote talk delivered at the IV. International Communication, Digitalization and Society Symposium (ICDS), Istanbul Aydın University, April 28, 2026. The theme of this year’s ICDS symposium — Truth in an Optimized Society: From Democracy to Infocracy — is … Read more
I attended the Artificial Intelligence, Manipulation, and Media Literacy Summit in Cyprus yesterday. Session 3 was in a question-and-answer format, which I prefer to just speaking. I asked Claude.ai to format my answers. I have to highlight that this formatting misses the anecdotes and lively occasions. Well, those who attend get the benefits. Still, for … Read more
My TV Turkish Serials Subreddit receives more than 95 thousand visits weekly, and my colleague Alper Kırklar and I decided to curate an edited volume on Turkish Television Series. The series’ global attraction is definitely unintended, but all over the world, I come across people asking me about a particular Turkish series. So here we … Read more
Here comes the new episode for Thoughts on academic life There has always been self‑promotion in academia. People mailed offprints, boasted about books, dropped famous names at dinner. But the contemporary landscape is qualitatively different: platformized, metricized, gamified.[6][8] Academics now operate across multiple, interconnected arenas: Citation and profile platforms: Google Scholar, Scopus IDs, ORCID, ResearchGate, … Read more
Here I show up in Anadolu Agency’s YouTube documentary on social media addictions. Well, you know me, I tried to be as objective as possible, and I am always distant from technological addiction rhetoric. Here I show in a short MESAM video on data security: I am a member of the scientific committee at this … Read more
I have attended a workshop of a COST project, and now I am flying back to İstanbul. The workshop took place on 19-20 March 2026 at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania. RELINK2 is one of the COST projects I could align my studies with. Glad to be part of it. By … Read more
I was once a trainer in an EU-funded project, and I spent a few hours with Prof. Ortaylı in 2015 in one of its workshops. I was really anxious about whether he would make fun of me, but he did not (!). According to the project page of RUMVADER (Cemaat Vakıfları Temsilciliği), it was the … Read more
When Algorithms Translate: Linguistic Colonialism, Data Sovereignty, and the New Role of the Translator This post is based on a talk I delivered at the panel “Translation and the Role of the Translator in Digital Communication,” organized by the Translation Association of Turkey (Çeviri Derneği) at Istanbul Aydın University on March 13, 2026. In Turkish, … Read more
Today I was invited to a talk at CNBCE Turkey. The topic was, of course, war, AI, and disinformation. While I was preparing for the talk, I updated my previous report on disinformation in the current war. A few instances of interest: 1- Unconfirmed stories on X and in some regional outlets allege that Quds Force … Read more