Good to see the New York Times has a lengthy obituary for Margaret Rossiter

This is an incredible deep dive into data centers and their water consumption. Lots of links that you can look into (though I didn't). The conclusion seems to be that data centers have to be treated like any other industrial center. andymasley.substack.com/p/i-cant-fin...

Sentence of the day! "If I've learned one bitter lesson about this stuff over the years, it's that the best productivity hack in the world is simply liking your job." Great post by @caseynewton.bsky.social with some new tools I hadn't heard of: www.platformer.news/productivity...

New post on my Substack about why the dichotomy between "democracy" and "technocracy" is a false one that is premised on a definition of "democracy" as public input as opposed to expert input. computingandsociety.substack.com/p/democracy-.... Thread below.

Very happy that "Just Code" is now published. It was a great journey from conference to book. I'm very happy to be among the company of all the writers in the anthology.

🦟 Can the Mosquito Bite? 🦟 The Multispecies Transmutation of Wolbachia Mosquitoes as Biotechnologies of Epidemic Control in Rio de Janeiro How does the use of a bacterium in vector control reconfigure biopolitical relations? New article at @estsjournal.bsky.social! #STSsky #AnthroSky

The problem with Michel Foucault's work: I wrote a post on my favorite philosopher explaining why his habit of calling his contribution as "power" makes the term "power" essentially meaningless. computingandsociety.substack.com/p/what-was-m...

Thanks to @markfabian.bsky.social for interviewing me. It was really fun to talk about my research. In the interview, I expand on what happened to MOOCs, how they became domesticated in that the wild hopes associated with them (access, big data!) abated but some concrete gains remained.

New episode of ePODstemology! @shreeharsh.bsky.social from Berkeley is on to discuss EdTech like MOOCs (remember those?), how it has evolved, and what effect it might have on the university of the future! www.buzzsprout.com/1763534/epis...

I wrote about what universities could do about the problem of students rampantly using ChatGPT (or LLMs or generative AI or whatever we call them now)to do college writing assignments. computingandsociety.substack.com/p/how-do-you.... Thread on the main argument follows.

Wrote an appreciation for the great Kevin Drum who passed away last week and how I learned to love time-series charts by reading him. I ended up building a small module around them in my "Research Methods" class. computingandsociety.substack.com/p/a-remembra...

I have been reading Kevin Drum for the last 20 years across various websites. His analysis was refreshingly bracing and heterodox, very empirical (he taught me the value of time-series charts), and very opinionated (like his views on AI). RIP, Kevin. I will miss you and your writing.

New post on A.G.I. and why it is a concept that hinders rather than helps in thinking about the impact of LLMs on the workforce. open.substack.com/pub/computin...

Posted on my blog after a long time (and hope to do so every week from now!). computingandsociety.substack.com/p/vaccine-he... This is a response (perhaps a quibble) to a great op-ed and equally great interview with Jerusalem Demsas by Dr. Rachael Bedard.

Just released cover of our book JUST CODE, out in Fall 2025. Honored to partner with Con in working alongside an absolutely stellar team of scholars for this interdisciplinary volume from Johns Hopkins University Press!!! #histtech

Great post by @jonathanstray.bsky.social. And this suggests that “facts” are the wrong hooks to hang trust on. Facts work only within an architecture of objectivity and that's the thing we need to build. Conservatives have to be a part of this project. www.betterconflictbulletin.org/p/meta-drops...

Haven't read the report yet but this strikes me as an astute observation. The big question, of course, is whether the creators' regime of objectivity proves institutionally durable.

New post: how do you solve a problem like Bluesky? Some reflections on centralized and decentralized labeling for content moderation. computingandsociety.substack.com/p/how-do-you...

Great thread here.

Busy week last week wrapping up classes here, but if you should definitely tune into my interview with @bshestakofsky.bsky.social about his book, _Behind the Startup: How Venture Capital Shapes Work, Innovation, and Inequality_, if you haven't checked it out yet. newbooksnetwork.com/behind-the-s...

Is sociocultural #anthropology a career? 🤔 In my chapter for this brilliant new volume, I argue that anthropology is not a #career in the same way that other majors are—that is a specific set of skills and knowledge for a specific set of occupations.💡 bit.ly/4iFD2L5 🧵

Growing up, the right wing people in my family were all in for vaccines and some of the liberal hippies had fringe anti-vax beliefs. I have seen real-time sorting around this issue: those who are/became more conservative adopted anti-vax views, & the hippies morphed into normie pro-vaccine liberals.

ICYMI: New post.

Have only today realized that this 1978 Business Week article, which I have only ever seen in B&W and thus always cited as "The New Diversification Oil Game" probably has "diversification" in a different color & should thus be cited as "The New Oil Game: Diversification."

🚨EVENT!🚨 LaborTech's End-of-Year Showcase! **Happening Thurs, Dec 12-Fri, Dec 13** Come for discussions on how to organize, research, & teach around labor + tech issues, with spotlights on South Asia and Latin America! For more info/to RSVP: bit.ly/4fIoBE2

New post: what makes social media different and harder to regulate? It's not your usual suspects: profit making motives and advertisements. It's three things: sheer scale, the collapse of contexts, and the puzzle of virality. computingandsociety.substack.com/p/whats-the-...

New post: what makes social media different and harder to regulate? It's not your usual suspects: profit making motives and advertisements. It's three things: sheer scale, the collapse of contexts, and the puzzle of virality. computingandsociety.substack.com/p/whats-the-...

Techno-fixes! Techno-solutionism? …just solutionism? We often see the words, but what do they mean? @evanselinger.bsky.social and I believe they are ill-defined at the moment, and that we would do well to develop them into more functional and distinct concepts. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Congratulations to the winners!

Announcing the winners of Labor Tech's 3rd annual Book, Graduate Student Paper, and Social Justice Awards! Book Award winner: Code Work: Hacking Across the US/México Techno-Borderlands by Héctor Beltrán (Princeton University Press) @teflonbeltran.bsky.social press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

the “user” in “user-centered design” is increasingly a fictional creature, like santa claus we should see “user” as first and foremost a corporate phantasm: a powerful hallucination conjured of fractal office politics, endless slide decks, and cargo cult design dogmas

New post: An issue is better explored by analyzing the different interests and mechanisms at play than by just blaming the profit motive or by saying "because: capitalism!" computingandsociety.substack.com/p/because-ca... #sts

Is digital public infrastructure like roads, an essential infrastructure that others can build businesses on? Or like radio, which makes an informed citizenry possible and is a backbone of democracy? Smart, thoughtful essay engages with some of my work: www.techpolicy.press/what-is-digi...

Despite Max's snarky comment about Facebook, the Meta threat intel team has done more against organized state propaganda actors than any other company and BlueSky should start by hiring a dedicated resource to plug into this partnership (unlike X): transparency.meta.com/metasecurity...

1) Many underestimate the investment the PRC has put into influencing the US social media sphere. 2) The destruction of Trust and Safety at X has made it a playground for PRC actors. 3) It's nice to see them whine about BlueSky. 4) But there is nothing magical about BlueSky to keep them away.

New post this week is a roundup of good election takes, what I learned from them, and how they shaped my thoughts: www.cauldron.llc/medium-data-...

Bluesky is planning to quadruple its "contract worker" content moderation team, from 25 to 100, per @caseynewton.bsky.social. Not sure whether this means short-term contracted workers, or workers obtained through outsourced firm. Also, would be interesting to know where workers are located.

Huh! From Semafor: Chinese state media worried about the rise of Bluesky users.

For those who don't know: @stuartjritchie.bsky.social and I run a science-based podcast called The Studies Show! Our latest episode is on RFK Jr and water fluoridation www.thestudiesshowpod.com/p/episode-56... but we've got about 70 episodes now: check them out here www.thestudiesshowpod.com/archive

Scholars sometimes find it notable that I voraciously share artifacts through highly public channels like Internet Archive. During my PhD, another grad student once asked me why I didn't sit on everything I found so that I could be credited as the person who discovered it. Here's 3 answers.

Google Wave! Time flies!

Great thread on what was acceptable and not in 1980s PC culture. And now I'm curious to read this magazine!

Hello! I've been working on a starter pack for labour and technology scholars on Bluesky. 🤖💪📘 I started with a bunch of folks from @labortech.bsky.social and have been expanding outwards. Reply or send a message to me directly if you'd like to be added or removed. go.bsky.app/UMaa7T3

It's a bit strange to me how passively users are discussed and modeled in misinformation research. As in, yes, there are various contexts under which an information ecosystem is imposed upon you but, in most cases, people make pretty conscious *choices* on what to consume & how..

Why does a scientist who studies AI care about butter? In the 1800s, margarine (like gen AI) got so good that even expert tasters couldn't detect it. Faced with public fear & industry fights, regulators asked scientists to "border patrol" the meaning of butter. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A very good piece by @hannahritchie.bsky.social that puts the forecasted power demand because of data centers (generally, not just for LLMs) into perspective: www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/ai-energy-... Answer: about 3-5%. But will have local effects.

every time I'm convinced that I'm writing something new about computing and society, I realize that Phil Agre has already written...in 1998

Why do some people distrust scientific institutions and others don't? It's about their political identity, not the scientific knowledge they may or may not possess. I wrote an explainer summarizing a canonical #sts article by Brian Wynne: computingandsociety.substack.com/p/brian-wynn...

I wrote an #explainer of one of my favorite #sts studies: Brian Wynne’s study of the Cumbrian sheep farmers and their distrust of the government scientists. computingandsociety.substack.com/p/brian-wynn...

I wrote an #explainer of one of my favorite #sts studies: Brian Wynne’s study of the Cumbrian sheep farmers and their distrust of the government scientists. computingandsociety.substack.com/p/brian-wynn...