🗳️ Announcing the #CSCW Steering Committee Chair (Elect) Elections! Two exceptional nominees received multiple nominations each: Jessica Vitak and Naomi Yamashita. Voting is anonymous and closes on *December 18*. You'll need your SIGCHI membership number to vote: karriekarahalios.com/CSCW/ChairEl...

On Tues, former UW postdoc Sukrit Venkatagiri recounted how our team experienced a slew of public records requests with implications for how the design of digital systems that support “seamless” collaboration intersect w/ privacy and the exploitation of public records laws. bsky.app/profile/sukr...

It’s the last day of #CSCW2025! Come by at 2:30pm at the Perspectives on Data Privacy session to watch me discuss the resistance tactics that workers use to circumvent surveillance and how they build towards collective action

🔎 Do you work at a public university or collaborate w/ someone who does? Come learn what happens when your messages are requested through public records laws in my #CSCW2025 paper w/ Rachel, @emmaspiro.bsky.social, & @katestarbird.bsky.social 🕝 2:30pm today 📍Bekken, Core Concepts in Privacy Research

I'll be at #CSCW2025 presenting a paper on the impact of public records (FOIA) requests on multi-stakeholder collaborations — co-authored with Rachel Moran, @emmaspiro.bsky.social, and @katestarbird.bsky.social: dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1...

i hope academics understand very clearly that columbia didn't lose their funding because of protesters against genocide. if they honestly think that, then they're going to get gutted by fascists who played them like the fucking fools they apparently are.

I'm a professor at an Ivy League institution and I think about Ivy League institutions about a tenth as much as the editors of major media outlets do. I'm begging you, for the love of God: Touch grass. Somewhere *other* than Harvard Yard.

I spoke to the New York Times about how social media platforms are increasingly difficult for researchers to study because of limited/no data access and why that's bad for society: www.nytimes.com/2023/11/17/t...

Ever notice how reposts are used differently vs. replies? In our ACM COMPASS 2023 paper we found that replies *reframed* the conversation of a post compared to quote retweets on Twitter. But retweets from *politically opposed* accounts twisted the OPs' words. dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

I'll be at #CSCW2023 and can't wait to meet old and new friends! Let's talk if you're interested in cross-platform visual misinformation, the (mis)uses of AI-generated photos and video, or what faculty life is like at a liberal arts college. Swarthmore CS is also hiring multiple visiting faculty.

Researchers of online misinformation (and related topics) aren’t “buckling” to politically-motivated attacks. Our critical work to understand and address online deception and manipulation continues. But only with the support of our colleagues and institutions. www.seattletimes.com/opinion/uw-m...

Our field is under partisan attack from the right — and it’s working. Funders - govt & philanthropic are cutting support. And academics & universities are unprepared to deal with this. More from @naominix.bsky.social wapo.st/3ZvQNTF

First day teaching Social Computing at Swarthmore College! We did a speculative design exercise — imagining what social technologies will be like in 10 yrs. Students also grappled w/ how we can better design the systems that we inhabit, why we have a responsibility to do so, & why it's so difficult.

"Accused: How students respond to allegations of using ChatGPT on assessments" New paper of mine coming soon in Learning: Research and Practice. The publication is in the pipeline, but you can read the preprint here: arxiv.org/abs/2308.16374 Hopefully useful as we embark on a new academic year!

Meta/Facebook/Threads/Instagram is now using your content for generative AI. There is a form to opt out, although I don't know if it'll make a difference, but here it is: www.facebook.com/help/contact...

To Protect Elections, Protect Researchers. cdt.org/insights/to-...

I spoke to Inside Higher Ed about recent — now reverted — changes to Zoom's ToS on using customer data for generative AI. How can I, in good conscience, use #Zoom when I can’t guarantee the privacy of my students & research participants? And when the ToS can change with no notice?

I don't know how effective content moderation w/ GPT4 will be, but it's a big step towards improving the well-being of moderators. In our CHI 2021 paper, we talked about the psychological challenges that they face every day: sukritv.com/uploads/CHI2021_Steiger_et_all_content_moderators.pdf

I had a wonderful year as a postdoc at UW working with @katestarbird.bsky.social & so many amazing students. Now, I'm excited to start as an assistant professor of computer science at Swarthmore College where I'll direct the Collective Resilience Lab. Here's a few photos from my first week!

Just a reminder that two prominent Federalist Society members wanted to overthrow the government by fraud and then have the government murder you if you objected. Eat that with your fuckin’ Chick-fil-A sack lunch.

The costs of insurrection

Free speech for me but not for thee. "Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in lecture." https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/25/texas-a-m-professor-opioids-dan-patrick/

I spoke to Michel Martin about the dangerous threats to the US fight against disinformation (and individual researchers in it) after the recent injunction prohibiting the Biden Administration from communicating with social media platforms. https://youtu.be/Vs_HCyvdZQU

Oof. The fan fiction website, Archive of Our Own (AO3), is being held ransom by the threat of current and future DDoS attacks. AO3 is primarily run by women *volunteers* and relies entirely on user donations. This is terrible.

NEW: The State Dept. today canceled all its scheduled meetings w/ Facebook on 2024 election interference, after a Trump-appointed La. judge curtailed the Biden admin's correspondence w/ tech firms. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/05/missouri-biden-judge-censorship-ruling-analysis/

The internet has fractured.

After 2020, it appeared the major social platforms were making progress on civic and election integrity, say Bridget Barrett and @dkreiss.bsky.social. Those gains have reversed- now the picture looks more like it did in 2016:

Anyway, off to make a donation to ProPublica. https://give.propublica.org

Half of my Google search results lead to Reddit, which is normally great. Except with the #RedditBlackout, 75% is inaccessible. One platform shouldn't have this much dominance over our collective conversation. It's great to see Redditors use this advantage to advocate for change, though!

Is there political bias in crowdsourced content #moderation? In our #FAccT2023 paper led by Jacob Thebault-Spieker w/ Naomi Mine & Kurt Luther we find risks of political bias but aggregation techniques that account for diverse political perspectives can mitigate it. https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.14500

After the January 6th attack, an online community of sleuths formed on Twitter, called the Sedition Hunters. They helped the FBI+DOJ identify 100s of suspected rioters. Check out our #TheWebConf2023 paper where we take a closer look at the community! https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3543507.3583514

Climate warlords https://grist.org/extreme-weather/boots-on-the-ground-fema-oath-keepers-natural-disaster/

Tuesday morning tragedy: running out of vanilla for my London Fog 😢

I guess this photo is an appropriate first skeet. Hello, Bluesky.