dave braneck

Freelance journalist covering sports and politics (most often for @dw_sports). New Jersey’s unofficial ambassador to Europe.

[dave braneck @braneck]

Germany's discourse around Israel is so broken that it silences Jews in the name of fighting antisemitism.

I wrote for @jacobin about how Germany's rhetoric of atonement is being used to bash immigrants- strengthening the right and endangering Jews in DE.
https://t.co/ZdQZs07Q54

[NBC News @NBCNews]

When the U.S. men’s national soccer team plays at home, its most loyal fans traditionally sit right behind a goal to cheer on the team.

But when the Americans kick off the World Cup next week, FIFA is seating them in the “nose bleeds,” according to a major U.S. fan group.

“These are the worst tickets that I’ve ever seen out of the five World Cups I’ve been to,” American Outlaws President Brian Hexsel says. https://t.co/hNJjr9FIDU

[Adam Crafton @AdamCrafton_]

Exclusive @TheAthleticFC

FIFA make last-gasp change to World Cup stadium rules: BANNING fans from bringing refillable plastic bottles, so fans must buy water in stadia

As of May, empty bottles permitted so fans could refill amid heat concerns. Not now

https://t.co/OuyjvgPoxN

[dave braneck @braneck]

@ted_knudsen @Politics_Oxford @UnivOxford @benwansell congrats man!

[Quartersnacks @quartersnacks]

Wrote about my favorite Marc Johnson part on QS: https://t.co/zRp5YXqFHK

[dave braneck @braneck]

@jowedekind @jacobin Danke brudi!

[dave braneck @braneck]

The Enhanced Games, an ad for supplements masking as athletic competition, are here

I wrote for @jacobin about how they reflect the world made by their billionaire backers: in a society dominated by scams, whoever can cheat most blatantly deserves to win
https://t.co/Y5axeJFQqZ

[dave braneck @braneck]

Despite the marketing, the immortality-obsessed ‘transhumanist’ ultra-rich actually disdain humanity. They’re happy to pump participants full of drugs they’d likely never take to help sell snake oil and give a cheaters’ Olympics an air of being about scientific progress

[Margaret Fleming @mgfleming12]

USMNT star and Brooklyn native Timothy Weah at Zohran Mamdani’s affordable tickets press conference:

[dave braneck @braneck]

In Chemnitz on a diplomatic mission to relocate the massive Karl Marx statue to Rockaway, New Jersey. Negotiations ongoing (a security guard has repeatedly asked me to leave)

[ESPN FC @ESPNFC]

Since Marie-Louise Eta became Union Berlin's interim head coach:

-Became the first-ever female coach to win a match in Europe's Top 5 Leagues
-Got her second win today in dominant fashion in her final match
-Ensured Union Berlin's Bundesliga survival

What a job she's done 👏

[New York Magazine @NYMag]

Joe Lim estimates that 90 percent of what you see on the internet is advertising in disguise, and he should know. For three years, Lim ran a company called Floodify, which at its peak operated 65,000 dummy social-media accounts used to drum up attention on behalf of paying clients.

The point of this kind of marketing is that nobody is supposed to notice it. But lately, the machinery has started to show.

In April, Justin Bieber headlined two consecutive weekends at Coachella. Coachella is the biggest stage in pop music save only for the Super Bowl, the kind of event that in theory generates its own attention. And yet on both weekends, a Discord server writer Lane Brown had been monitoring hosted paid campaigns for Bieber’s Coachella performances, offering clippers — people who are hired to turn a song, trailer, interview, stump speech, or whatever into short, social-media-friendly fragments — as much as a dollar per thousand views.

“On social media, popular opinion is being formed, measured, and manipulated all at once, and every signal the platforms produce — a trending song, a backlash, a talking point, the feeling that ‘everybody’ is suddenly talking about the same thing — can now be fabricated by unseen actors with hidden agendas,” writes Brown.

“Everybody is doing this now,” Lim says. “And if you’re not, you’re behind.”

Brown reports on how the same techniques are now being used to fool people on every app they go to in order to find out what other people think, not just in music but across entertainment, politics, consumer products, and celebrity gossip: https://t.co/hlcdfSmzPc

[Hanno Hauenstein @hahauenstein]

A. lived in Germany since he was 2 months and last year gained German citizenship. Now he’s been stripped of it because of pro-Palestinian Instagram posts, in a disturbing legal case that points to the rise of citizenship-on-probation. My latest @jacobin
https://t.co/GE7cd5Albg

[dave braneck @braneck]

@fertigdamit We’re going to drink warm beer and we’re going to like it

[dave braneck @braneck]

And they said the US has nothing to contribute to football culture

[Stadium Eats @stadium_eats_]

Miller Lite is debuting a soccer ball beer holder that fits up to 12 beers.

The Miller Time MVP Matchball will go on sale before the World Cup for $19.75.

[Gothamist @Gothamist]

In the shadow of NYC, 'the cradle of American soccer' prepares for the World Cup

https://t.co/tmIrPBM2Wq

[dave braneck @braneck]

@TJMPodcast Damn, 3. Liga glory really got to their heads

[dave braneck @braneck]

‘American Bagel’ in Berlin. Based on the logo and my experience with German bagels I’m going to go ahead and assume what they serve is significantly more antisemitic than anything happening in die Linke

[dave braneck @braneck]

Berlin’s rampant Americanization has apparently even hit far-left Marxist stands at the main union May Day demonstration

[dave braneck @braneck]

Damn, pretty random way to find out I was at GW at the same time as Platner. He’s probably going to be a senator, I’ve got like 1k followers - I’d say we have equally inspiring stories

[Andrew Kaczynski @KFILE]

Graham Platner was interviewed in 2008 for CNN/MTV special on veterans adjusting to life in college.

[Matthew Doyle @MattDoyle76]

Save the Caps.
https://t.co/GDJDmAckBb