Defending public information goods and online communities under attack. zenodo.org/records/1560... A @communitydata.science strategy brief led by @zarine.net (with @mako.cc and me riding shotgun)

a new short research brief with @mako.cc and @aaronshaw.bsky.social synthesizes some of the work I presented at @communitydata.science Science of Community Dialogues back in April! zenodo.org/records/1560...

Important message from @ethanvporter.bsky.social @aaronshaw.bsky.social @emmaspiro.bsky.social “NSF has accepted a dangerous myth that misinformation research (and research more generally) is really just partisan activism […] Nothing could be further from the truth” www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Misinformation research continues to be urgent science. By @ethanvporter.bsky.social, @emmaspiro.bsky.social, and me. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A policy brief on what generative AI simulations of people might be good for! (based on work with the amazing team of @joon-s-pk.bsky.social @cqzou.bsky.social @mako.cc @robbwiller.bsky.social @mbernst.bsky.social Merrie Morris, Carrie Cai, and Percy Liang)

🧵🧵🧵 effective commons governance doesn't mean you get the equilibrium you want...

That part of the timeline where I'm watching the White Sox game and realize maybe I'm in solidarity with the pope 🧦

Find me a better Bluesky thread. Go ahead, I'll wait.

University leaders are looking for capital. They have political capital. As with their endowments, they are inclined to sit on it. The thing about political capital though, is that if you spend it wisely it grows.

New interview up at the Protocol Oral History Project—Camille Acey on organizational closures: protocol.ecologies.info/interviews/a...

Northwestern faculty Senate has passed a version of the Rutgers mutual defense compact tonight, making it (I think) a dozen faculty governance bodies around the country to do so. Go cats!

AI-generated from a model prompted with someone's truth social feed?

👀👀👀

Person trailing after a car shouting "Uber STOP" as if the driver would respond to it like their name

the fascist Trump admin is coming after Wikipedia now. the letter reads like a crowd-sourced listicle.

"With Rogers’ arrest, there have been nine firearm-related busts in or near the Naperville Topgolf parking lot this year, Krakow confirmed."

I had at least 17 hours worth of material queued up for my most recent flight

thank you for bringing this to our attention

Smart strategic investment and political gesture, but let's not pretend these one-offs will save American science and research. Multiple orders of magnitude too small. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

seems normal www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

my negotiating tactics culminate in allcaps STOP too

Well-put take on destruction of NSF misinformation research (from an NSF program director whose program funded plenty of it!)

Thank you @durbin.senate.gov for your service.

April 24 at CASBS | 2025 Sage-CASBS Award Lecture featuring @dacemoglumit.bsky.social "Institutions, Technology and Prosperity" Acemoglu will review the main motivations & arguments of his work on comparative development, colonialism, and institutional change. Event details & RSVP: bit.ly/3RqiJ7S

Northwestern faculty passed in a landslide strong resolutions pushing for defense of academic freedom, integrity, and shared accountable university governance drive.google.com/file/d/1FVu5...

[email protected]'s research on AI Literacy was abruptly defunded by the Trump administration, possibly because it also included work on misinformation -- who needs those things, i guess? www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/s...

how I arrived on Bluesky

Chicago-area college presidents joined more than 220 national higher education leaders in condemning Trump administration influence over universities.

Me: someday my research will be mentioned in the opening paragraph of a New York Times article! Also me: hmmm should have been more specific. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/s...

coming soon: NU faculty assembly achieved a quorum for the first time EVER to resoundingly pass resolution urging president and trustees to take more proactive steps defending academic freedom, international scholars and students, research integrity, and transparent shared governannce

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025... (featuring a compelling photo of northwestern colleagues)

Seems good. Also, where's NU President signature on this? NU board chair indicated to faculty that collective action with other university presidents was coming soon...we're waiting! www.aacu.org/newsroom/a-c...

The timing is great (given topic salience, interest, etc.) and also terrible (bc it starts just after midnight in my timezone 🤯). Send great questions and I'll try to answer in my sleep!

📣 Calling all #CHI2025 attendees who work with human participants: Join our panel discussion on #LLM, #simulation, #syntheticdata, and the future of human subjects research on Apr 30 (Wed), 2:10 - 3:40 PM (JP Time) Post your questions for panelists here: forms.gle/m2mXY3xFafAX...

Spoke to a formerly NSF-funded researcher and a former NSF program officer about the changes to the NSF re: disinformation. They were clear: studying disinformation doesn't cause censorship, but censoring research causes censorship.

Can we bring back /reinvigorate webs of trust at the same time?

shots fired

more of this. @jpalfrey.bsky.social is the real deal. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Anybody got a list of these going yet?

whenever I brainstorm crazy things to ask for in a negotiation, I write them on official letterhead and get three lawyers to sign it JUST IN CASE

I mean, who among us *hasn't* sent a letter filled with seemingly illegal, overreaching demands to Harvard late in a Friday amirite???

holy hell, arstechnica from the top rope on why universities need to adopt proactive tactics in the face of current threats arstechnica.com/culture/2025...

Re NSF, it's worth reading the document. Suggests things not as dire as possible/feared, but plenty of chilling effects to go 'round 🥶🥶🥶 www.nsf.gov/updates-on-p...

🧵 re Updated NSF priorities...

We are rapidly hurtling towards a critical moment in this constitutional crisis. When the deportation orders return to the Supreme Court, which they will in weeks if not days if not hours, one of three things could happen: 1/

🤣

Watching 4chan hack reports surface like 👀🍿, but also there's value in anonymity and anonymous contributions to online communities ☠️🪦⚰️. For example, @mako.cc and I wrote a paper a few years ago: youtu.be/1C7Cc7xdrcM