I have many thoughts about Charlie Kirk—and perhaps even more about the white elites, including some on the left, who insist we can’t hold multiple realities at once. We can. And we must. A brief 🧵

Very thoughtful thread about the networked harassment that has been unleashed since Kirk’s assassination. Nathan points to resources for institutional leaders seeking to prepare for and respond to such harassment, including our info and toolkit at researchersupport.org.

I encourage everyone to look out for their safety and practice good internet hygiene, of course. But some of the scolding posts I've read suggest we can change the awful aftermath of a fateful event by just holding our tongues and being quiet little mice, and that isn't my experience.

Authoritarianism often enters through crime policy & policing bc public so often demands more & tougher policing. Yanilda González shows this in Authoritarian Police in Democracy. A while back I was in conversation w/ her & other policing scholars for @annualreviews.bsky.social. Highly recommend.

Having taught at two Jesuit universities (Fordham and Georgetown), I am happy to see this Op-Ed that aligns DEI with Jesuit values. From my former Dean at both places, William Treanor. www.americamagazine.org/faith-and-re...

“The dictators of the world have got nothing to fear from this hearing.” Jamie Raskin says as he performs Shakespearean democracy monologues while the GOP live-tweets Farage quotes.

👀

I watched the DSA and OSA "Censorship" Hearing in the House Judiciary Committee today so you don't have to. I have some questions. A 🧵 of my internet lawyer, free speech expert, First Amendment scholar ponderings, to no no one in particular: Why are we here? 1/

Nigel Farage missed today’s session of UK Parliament to serve as witness in this Congressional hearing. But now he’s skipped out that, too, leaving before all members could complete their questions.

Rs and their witnesses keep recycling the same three examples—none of which have anything to do with the OSA or DSA. All while turning a blind eye to the Trump admin’s threats to and censoring of US public health officials, scientists, lawyers, journalists, and military & national security leaders.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal did an incredible job of calling out how Republicans are carrying water for big tech oligarchs, totally abandoning small and medium-sized US businesses.

By the way, my write-up about why the DSA does not censor speech in the U.S. is here: cyberlaw.stanford.edu/a-primer-on-...

Great play-by-play from @daphnek.bsky.social on this hearing, which is nothing more than an attempt to distract from the Trump administration’s egregious threats the free speech.

No surprise here as former UN special rapporteur @davidakaye.bsky.social does yeoman's work trying to educate the House Judiciary Committee on why it should be concerned about the state of free speech in the U.S. rather than the EU's Digital Services Act.

Witness @davidkaye.bsky.social, former UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, says, “If I were Special Rapporteur today, the situation in the United States would raise the most serious alarms.”

The House Judiciary Committee is currently holding a hearing on supposed “censorship” resulting from the EU’s Digital Services Act and UK’s Online Safety Act. The hearing is a distraction from the Trump administration’s own dire threats to free speech.

"You can say what you like, I don’t care, because that’s what free speech is," Nigel Farage has just told the House Judiciary Committee, about three hours after his party banned me from covering its conference this weekend.

Has the rest of the internet already seen this? Am I late to the party? This is the best laugh I’ve had in a long, long time. Pure unadulterated hysterical joy. 😂 youtu.be/o589CAu73UM

Spent a couple of hours sitting in the Pnyx today, reflecting on the decline of democracy in its birthplace.

Indispensable resources for scholars that are confronted with harrassment, intimidation, and threats, and for the institutions that would like to support their staff experiencing this

💡Two super useful resources for when academics (or journalists!) are being targeted - and for institutions to be prepared. (We are underprepared…) 1) expertvoicestogether.org/researcher 2) researchersupport.org #ECPRgc25 @ecpr.bsky.social

1) Using the situation in the US as an impetus to raise awareness in Europe 2) Importance of solidarity among scholars 3) Responsibility of institutions #ECPRgc25 Hands down best plenary I’ve been to in a while!

Among all the other things, "The President has screwed things up so badly that the world's other rich countries won't deliver mail to us anymore" really should end it immediately.

When they start doing a fascism, you do everything in your power to stop them. Those are the rules. And you convince the public that they should be on board with that effort, too. Just imagine these guys (they’re all guys) at other periods of American history. Just wild shit.

Also on Wednesday, I will be attending this featured roundtable on a very important topic: academic freedom, harrassment & intimidation of scholars, with @isaliba.bsky.social, Peter Maassen, Iris Beau Segers, @rebekahtromble.bsky.social, and @sldelange.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/slde...

This is followed by my personal highlight, which will be a plenary roundtable I will moderate on academic freedom and harrassment and intimidation of scholars. Delighted to have experts Iris Seegers, @isaliba.bsky.social Peter Maassen and @rebekahtromble.bsky.social on the roundtable.

This is a good example of what I’ve started calling “normalsauce democratic comms.” It sucks. The whole genre should be sent out to sea on a rickety boat. If your messaging is identical to what you would’ve said in 2017, you are failing and you ought to know better.

An incredible moment at tonight's Washington Spirit home game at Audi Field, as the crowd erupts in a "FREE DC" chant.

"Public confidence in vaccines isn’t boosted by governments cancelling science...removing funding for a cutting-edge technology that has saved lives will leave people less protected when the next pandemic strikes. It is irresponsible and will slow global progress." www.nature.com/articles/d41...

As if this week were not bizarre enough: Mount Pleasant residents tell me a group of federal agents gathered for a photo-op near a pro-immigrant banner, pictured below, then tore it down. In its place, they left a dildo. A neighbor's Ring camera captured the whole thing...

We know how this works, because we saw how it worked here in Wisconsin & elsewhere for years when the far right authoritarian attacks were coming from state-level Republicans:

"Maybe if we just keep our heads down & work the backchannels & hope someone else speaks up on our behalf, then it will all work out...or at least he won't focus on <us>"

Right. He uses his audience to give the impression that he has populist consensus. But audience and voter/base are not the same thing.

Yes. Scientists must defend democracy and freedom. The three are linked. We cannot do great science without the other small-l liberal values. From our mission statement at @safa-science.bsky.social : 1/2

1. "'Trusting the experts is not a feature of either a science or democracy," Kennedy said." It's literally a vital feature of both science and of representative democracy. I've written a fair bit about trust in expertise as a vital mechanism in the collective epistemology of science.

Two things can be true: 1) The President has legal authority over the D.C. police and the D.C. National Guard that he doesn't have *anywhere else* in the country; & 2) Even if this doesn't set a legal precedent, it sets an ominous *political* precedent for pretextually overriding local government.

The authoritarian takeover of DC law enforcement is awful for so many reasons. But this part is genuinely comical. What ridiculous waste of our federal tax dollars.

Really should have stuck with calling them creepy, uncool, goofy weirdos.

Drug Enforcement Administration officers patrolling the National Mall. If you know DC you understand how tremendously goofy this is (h/t @lorenzohall1.bsky.social)

As L.A. was a couple of months ago, D.C. is merely an excuse for Trump to continue normalizing the use of federal law enforcement and the U.S. military to police Democratic cities. The implications for local self-government, civil liberties, and the 2026 and 2028 elections are obvious and ominous.

I have friends and family visit me in Washington D.C. from cities all over the country. Their universal message: "Wow, this city is so clean!" Yes, D.C. is clean and safe. Shocker, I know.

“Even Fox News Is Fact-Checking Trump’s Deranged D.C. Claims *** Donald Trump’s favorite network debunked his claims about Washington’s crime rates on air.” 8/11/25 … 1/ newrepublic.com/post/198973/...

Trump's own DOJ website still has a press release up from January pointing out that violent crime in D.C. is at its lowest in more than 30 years.

Every story quoting Trump saying this is to "rescue our nation’s capital from crime" needs to note that violent crime in D.C. is down 26%, murders are down 12%, juvenile arrests are down 20%, and ask who will get hurt from a domestic military deployment and what this "crackdown" is really about

I think that one of the problems of LLMs is that the real world was never meant to be exposed to SaaS. Real people are not conditioned to be sold awkward, half-functional software that sucks unless you spend hours tweaking it, at which point it sort of works and you're meant to love it

Exclusive: CDC Director Susan Monarez met with its vaccine-focused center to talk about yesterday’s shooting. I listened to a recording. Scientists and officials are shaken & pointing fingers at RFK Jr. Many said his vilification and misinfo turned them into targets. www.msnbc.com/opinion/anal...