New, from me: Trump finalized his Schedule F policy, allowing him to remove job protections from career civil servants. The new rule is dishonest and unmoored from reality in its effort to formalize the politicization of the federal government 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/trumps-sch...

Do ordinary Republicans and Democrats really avoid each other in everyday life? In a new working paper with Delia Baldassarri, we present descriptive and experimental evidence to challenge the view that partisanship drives the formation of social relationships. osf.io/preprints/so... 1/15

Two agents involved in the shooting deaths of US citizens in Minneapolis are reportedly part of paramilitary tactical units—including ICE’s two Special Response Teams (SRT), CBP’s one SRT, and the Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC)—whose extreme tactics are generally reserved for war zones.

This @bostonreview.bsky.social piece by @adambonica.bsky.social and @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social is an absolute must-read, as are many of the responses to it. Spread this one far and wide.

This week, we are welcoming our wonderful new addition to the @ddc-sdu.bsky.social and @d-ias.bsky.social teams: @jolukito.bsky.social! Velkommen til Odense og SDU Jo! ❤️ We are so excited to have you join us! @claesdevreese.bsky.social @lenafrescamente.bsky.social @curdknupfer.bsky.social

The last time he started talking like this, his allies minimized the risks and we ended up with January 6. This time we must take him literally and seriously. These comments are a five-alarm fire for democracy. In a functioning republic, he would be impeached and removed from office today.

@jasonfurman.bsky.social argues in this @econofact.bsky.social podcast that “affordability” is not necessarily worse now, but there are real concerns, especially with the costs of housing, childcare, and medical care. What policies could help? Or hurt? econofact.org/podcast/is-t...

The rise of Newsmax in official congressional e-newsletters is sort of amazing.

My quote of the day We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces. Carl Sagan

We are looking for a doctoral researcher to work with us on a supercool project in collaboration with linguists. The deadline is Feb 15th, contact me if you have any questions! stellen.uni-konstanz.de/jobposting/9...

Very important points here from @noupside.bsky.social & @markhisted.org Attn: @michaelemann.bsky.social @erictopol.bsky.social @peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social

New podcast: Residents filmed federal agents killing nurse Alex Pretti, 37, in Minneapolis. As local officials call for video evidence, Tech Policy Press fellow Chris Mills Rodrigo considers: Can social media footage actually deliver accountability and justice in cases of state violence?

HCDE Professor Kate Starbird has been named an ACM Fellow, one of the highest honors in computing. She's recognized for contributions to understanding and improving information ecosystems, including during crisis events and addressing misinformation. www.hcde.washington.edu/news/article...

Comparing registrations to published papers is essential to research integrity - and almost no one does it routinely because it's slow, messy, and time-demanding. RegCheck was built to help make this process easier. Today, we launch RegCheck V2. 🧵 regcheck.app

Chapter 2: Duncan Watts & @davidlazer.bsky.social reflect on how the field has evolved from early simulation models to today’s large-scale data and experiments, and ask how can computational social science move from producing insights to having real societal impact? @nunetsi.bsky.social

Looking forward to visiting @unileiden.bsky.social and speaking in the research seminar series of @cwtsnl.bsky.social this Friday. Come to CWTS or join online! 👇

There is nothing complicated or subtle or hard to understand about what is going on. Trump may not succeed. But he will only fail if patriots stand up and defend our democracy and the Constitution. We must act, as @mashagessen.bsky.social writes, while we still can. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/18/o...

The president -Is occupying a major city with armed paramilitiaries -Is blackmailing treaty allies to hand over their sovereign territory -Is trying to set himself up as chairman for life of a UN rival with $1B fees for permanent membership -Is talking about canceling elections

NEW: Omar Lizardo, "The Forward March of Categorical Tolerance in the United States" sociologicalscience.com/articles-v13...

The scale and speed of state censorship of campus really is amazing. More than half of America's college students attend institutions in states that have passed laws censoring higher education since 2021. From @penamerica.bsky.social pen.org/report/ameri...

OpenAI today: openai.com/index/our-ap... Useful perspective from Daniel Barcay from November: www.techpolicy.press/advertising-...

Please take a moment to fill out our survey here 4/6: forms.gle/TMAXn63g2sgB...

Conference update: IC2S2 Virtual Day. While Vermont is an incredibly kind and welcoming state, national policies and federal actions have a real impact on conference access, particularly for people from countries who cannot enter the US due to federally enacted travel bans. 1/6

So all of the info on Wikipedia is shared under a Creative Commons Share Alike license. Does this mean that MSFT, Meta and Amazon will be making their models freely available?

No matter what your politics and/or values are at this moment, @cip.uw.edu co-founder @katestarbird.bsky.social writes in a blog post that "it’s vital to understand the online dynamics and political strategies that are shaping how we see the world." www.cip.uw.edu/2026/01/15/f...

🧵 Trump administration AI policy is widely described as deregulatory. This description is misleading. What's happening is not the absence of governance but its rearrangement--intensive state intervention operating through mechanisms we don't typically call regulation. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

For social scientists interested in LLMs for text classification/coding, the process here is potentially very helpful (even if you don't use the product itself). Their core technique: Contradictory Example Training Their training method: Binocular Labeling More details in the linked post below.

🗣️"Six papers accounted for nearly half of all research references across hundreds of articles." #SocialMedia #SciComm

“Not only is AI-driven work prone to circling the same crowded problems, but it also leads to a less interconnected scientific literature, with fewer studies engaging with and building on one another.” www.science.org/content/arti...

An der Universität Zürich ist auf den 1. August 2027 eine Professur für Soziologie zu besetzen. The University of Zurich invites applications for a professorship in sociology starting on 1 August 2027.

Our Department at Aalborg University is hiring an Associate Professor in Sociology with a focus on quantitative methods: www.stillinger.aau.dk/videnskabeli...

1) Due to popular demand, the abstract deadline has been extended to 👉Jan 30👈 -- plz share! 2) We are delighted to announce our keynote speaker -- Taha Yasseri @tahayasseri.bsky.social Chair of Technology and Society @ Trinity College Dublin & Technological University Dublin ▶️ cs2italy.org

Hey! @wired.com is doing a bunch of hiring. Here we go with a thread of five great jobs, with a few more coming shortly: 1) We are hiring a senior editor for our science desk, which means you get to work with geniuses like @timmarchman.bsky.social @mollytaft.com and @emilymullin.bsky.social

Join us in Frankfurt or online: "Social Media Access Days" - Social media data between research and infrastructure – sustainable archiving, cataloguing and access. March 17-19. Featuring a keynote by @snurb.info. Full program and registration details at: www.dnb.de/EN/Kulturell...

New paper out in @pnasnexus.org: We show how skewed social media data can still be used to reliably estimate unemployment, not just nationally but down to the city level. 📈 doi.org/10.1093/pnas... 1/N

PHD AND POSTDOC POSITIONS AT THE DIGITAL DEMOCRACY CENTRE Topic: AI and the News Ecosystem See thread by project PI @claesdevreese.bsky.social below. Please help circulate and/or apply. #polcomm #academia

This is the current front page of the Times. The Washington Post is even worse. Their headlines are privileging the accounts of the administration with a track record of lying as being as valid as eye witness accounts and videos.

🧵 PhD position (75%) in Political Behavior / Political Communication / CSS 📍 LMU Munich | ⏳ 3 years | 🗓 start March–May 2026 We’re hiring for DemocraGPT, a @bidt.bsky.social-funded project developing an AI-based training for difficult conversations in times of growing polarization

🚨 the best state policy & public opinion database is now online. ~200 (!!!) state policies and 80 public opinion series on abortion, labor, taxes, environment, guns, education… dynamicdemocracy.shinyapps.io Massive public goods provision from @devincaughey.bsky.social & @chriswarshaw.bsky.social

Every major free speech org has said the IHRA definition suppresses constitutionally protected speech. Every major human rights group has said it suppresses legitimate advocacy. The scandal is that Adams adopted the definition, not that Mamdani rejected it. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/04/n...

Political Networks is crossing the ocean, to the UK August 4-7!! Should be great.

2026 Political Networks Conference: 4-7 August 2026 at the University of Manchester. Save the date! More info will be released in early spring. #SNA #polinetworks #polnet #polisky #networkanalysis #politicalnetworks #politicalnets #policynetworks #complexsystems #netsci #polmeth #polisci

A side story is there’s a ton of insider trading on these prediction markets. New accounts making hundreds of thousands on their first and only trade, that maduro would be ousted. Seems like insider trading is legal if not encouraged on these platforms

“A recurring feature of bubbles is how often they find new ways of democratising gambling.” Hard to time, but not hard to spot. Incisive from @financialtimes.com’s John Plender.

✖️Who produces most online hate speech and how effective is counterspeech? ➡️ @gloriagennaro.bsky.social et al. find that hate speech is concentrated among a few users and that counterspeech on X mostly fails to curb prolific offenders www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #FirstView

A compelling graphic look at all the ways that Trump and his family and friends have been monetizing the White House in his second term to enrich themselves more than any presidential clan has ever done before. @lazarogamio.bsky.social Amy Schoenfeld Walker www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

We got Meta’s “general global playbook” for defeating advertiser verification regulations, which the company knows would reduce scams. It includes making scam ads “not findable” for regulators searching Meta’s ad library through targeted scrubbing. www.reuters.com/investigatio...

Requested a correction from @princetonupress.bsky.social. Let's see what happens.