I spoke with @whiskeyocelot.bsky.social and @chinafile.bsky.social's Jessica Batke about their recent Locknet report, which provides a brilliant, concise, detailed but accessible overview of China's online censorship system.

I talked to @cbsmornings.bsky.social this morning about the rising tide of extreme content on social media in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination: www.cbsnews.com/video/what-c...

NEW X helped spread ill-informed conclusions about the motivations of the Minneapolis school shooter based on cherry-picked words or phrases to millions. with comment from @ninajankowicz.com @whiskeyocelot.bsky.social @rothschildmd.bsky.social @maargentino.com www.wired.com/story/disinf...

I'm one of the 37 targeted below by DNI Tulsi Gabbard. I haven't had a clearance nor worked in government since 2013. This is political theater & a dangerous example of government abusing its powers to punish private citizens for openly exercising their 1st Amendment rights. My full statement:

One of the things I was most excited that we got to do for the Locknet report was to produce these explainers of how the internet actually works. It’s not magic!

@chinafile.bsky.social’s Jessica Batke and @whiskeyocelot.bsky.social, authors of a new report that reshapes our understanding of Chinese censorship, spoke to the @washingtonpost.com about how the “Locknet” works. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

I talked to @washingtonpost.com for this piece on China's digital ID system. It's a great example of two key features of the Locknet: 1) different aspects of the censorship system reinforce each other, and 2) pushing the policeman into citizens heads. wapo.st/4kBkkEc

Can anyone help me identity this mushroom? It grew up in just a few days in my garden, and it’s currently over a foot wide. I’m definitely not going to eat it, I’m just curious!

NEW: @lancierifilippo.bsky.social (@georgetownlaw.bsky.social), @whiskeyocelot.bsky.social, Stefan Bechtold (@ethz.ch) explore how the political economy of artificial intelligence regulation is shaped by the strategic behavior of governments, technology companies, and other agents.

NEW: A ChinaFile investigation into China's powerful, but leaky, internet censorship system at locknet.chinafile.com 1/21

EPIC collaborated w/ @commonsensemedia.bsky.social, Cybersecurity for Democracy (@yaeleisenstat.bsky.social @whiskeyocelot.bsky.social) & Tech Justice Law Project on a brief telling the Ninth Circuit to deny Meta Section 230 protections for its allegedly addictive design. 11 legal scholars joined!

Thanks to @epic.org for leading the way, to @comminsense.bsky.social and TJLP for this collaboration, and the below legal scholars, who signed on in support. What a team! cc: @whiskeyocelot.bsky.social & @meganiorio.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/mega...

Supported by @opentechfund.bsky.social: @chinafile.bsky.social’s Jessica Batke & @whiskeyocelot.bsky.social explain that Chinese censorship isn’t simply a “firewall, but a “locknet” – a multi-level system of socio-technical controls. (1/4) locknet.chinafile.com/the-locknet/...

So... I'm not saying you should sue any platforms under the DSA. But if you *did* want to do that, you'd definitely want to look at this article from @pjleerssen.bsky.social, Iris Toepoel, Anna van Duin, and @jvh.bsky.social It's basically a tactical guide. dsa-observatory.eu/wp-content/u...

I bring you a tiny bit of good news — courts are finally reining in Big Tech in significant ways. We could actually be on the cusp of a totally transformed tech landscape - after 30 years of total lack of constraints. My latest for @nytopinion.nytimes.com (gift link)

There’s nothing ‘unofficial’ about this start to the summer.

The stars of the Memorial Day Fair, the town farm’s goats!

I left my job at ProPublica about a month ago. Here's why: I've teamed up with @mantzarlis.com to launch indicator.media, a new publication dedicated to exposing digital deception and to equipping professionals and the public with knowledge and skills to investigate it. Sign up for free below!

Since 2022, my colleagues and I have been targeted by political attacks. Early on, we worried that political actors would specifically target our projects & universities for defunding. But in the end, they came after everyone. The strategy of keeping heads down was never the right one.

You know it's 7PM on Tuesday because that's when you receive an email from your kid's teacher that the kids are all 'invited' to dress up like woodland creatures tomorrow! Go pull out that squirrel costume you definitely keep on hand for just such occasions. 🫠

I spoke with Science about scholars—myself included—self-censoring. In my case, my team and I feared losing our NSF funding for Expert Voices Together (expertvoicestogether.org), a program, ironically, built to support researchers and journalists under attack. www.science.org/content/arti...

"For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging." Today I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council. I wrote about my decision in TIME. time.com/7285045/resi...

Powerful statement and an inside look at what is happening to science in tge current administration . time.com/7285045/resi...

Star Wars is fine. Completely fine.

New paper alert! We studied the lifecycle of content in the US, Ukrainian, and Russian ecosystems on Facebook and found: * Engagement is highly asymmetric * Lifecycles are short: most engagement happens in < 8hrs * Content takedowns are rare (<.7%) but slow, and therefore not that impactful. Quick 🧵

“Should not undo it” There, I fixed it. I was the Chief Technologist of the Civil Rights Division last year, and the CRA is *extremely* hard to enforce. DoJ has very few actual tools to do it- it can’t issue civil investigatory demands, just bring cases. It’s as fragile as a soap bubble.

The canceled grands are shock and awe, but the real damage will come from the long-term (massive) reductions in funding to the entire US research ecosystem and the defunding of entire fields and initiatives for training, growing, and diversifying the research workforce.

Another scientist detained when returning to the US. It happened last month, but her colleagues found out (or at least started talking about it) this week. Conference organizers need to figure out hybrid options ASAP and Universities should issue travel warnings. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

The Onion is the only print news subscription I have and I can confirm the excellent value of this important publication.

thinking of one of abraham lincoln's great quotes this morning: "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy."

This is excellent and very much worth the hour!!

If you're interested in language, AI, and cognition, this is the *must-watch* video of the week: Debate a few days ago between Dr. @emilymbender.bsky.social and Dr. @sbubeck.bsky.social on whether chatbots can "understand". Was a lively and fun debate to watch. www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtIQ...

I'm sorry, but the most mindblowing thing I learned this week is that there are people in the year 2025 who share their contacts with Venmo. WILD.

Today is Tuesday and I still believe in science.

🎙️New podcast! A Conversation with Dr. Alondra Nelson on AI and Democracy I spoke to @alondra.bsky.social about AI, democracy, DOGE, and how to plan for a different future: techpolicy.press/a-conversati...

Hi, I'm the guy who used to oversee the federal government's agency IT telecommunications contracts. This is extremely bad. There is absolutely no need for this. Not only is it a huge security exposure, but the simplest explanation for this is that it is meant to be a security exposure.

I feel so bad for the physicists. In six weeks they'll be begging in the streets to fund their supercolliders. Whereas over here in the computer science faculty we can have a robot sale that will keep the compute cluster going for MONTHS.

The shuttering of VoA, Radio Free Asia, Radio Martí, and the rest is so short-sighted. America has something to say to the world. Ceding the information space to dictators and autocracies will only make our future more dangerous and less free. www.npr.org/2025/03/15/n...

If you could design social media today, how would you go about it? How would you decide what to curate, to foster discussion? How would you create norms, find ways to bridge differences? We discuss on Lawfare Daily! Bluesky users will recognize the reference. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/lawf...

So proud of @northeasternu.bsky.social ‘s Tech Policy team! Kate, Michelle, Fernando, and Jayant participated in the @atlanticcouncil.bsky.social ‘s Cyber 9/12 Policy Competition and did brilliantly!

It's a busy time, and so we're hiring another legal fellow to start right away. I hope you'll consider joining us. knightcolumbia.org/page/legal-f...

Read @techpolicypress.bsky.social, then read the full paper, "Into the Driver’s Seat With Social Media Content Feeds," by @whiskeyocelot.bsky.social, Frances Haugen, and Damon McCoy, at: knightcolumbia.org/content/into...

Social media feeds shape what we see—but how do they actually work? Cybersecurity for Democracy Project co-director Laura Edelson details a new framework that breaks down algorithmic feeds into four key dimensions, helping users & researchers understand their impact.

New article from me in TPP: A basic introduction to feed cards, our proposed nutrition label for social media algorithmic feeds: www.techpolicy.press/a-new-framew...

Every tech company* has platform teams trying to build: 1. Heroku, except hand-rolled 2. One giant shared database, so engineers can ignore analytics without consequence 3. If they have a monolith, microservices. If microservices, a monolith 4. A solution to the halting problem * Hyperbole. I hope

New work by me from @knightcolumbia : Into the Driver's Seat with Algorithmic Feeds. Wonder how, exactly, how social media algorithmic feeds work? They're incredibly opaque, so I've spent years building a framework for measuring and explaining them. Buckle up and come with me!🧵

How do you educate the public about the differences in platforms’ algorithmic feeds? @whiskeyocelot.bsky.social (@northeasternu.bsky.social), Frances Haugen, & Damon McCoy (@nyutandon.bsky.social) explain recommender systems by comparing them to vehicles. knightcolumbia.org/content/into...

New @knightcolumbia.org essay: In “Into the Driver’s Seat With Social Media Content Feeds,” @whiskeyocelot.bsky.social, Frances Haugen,& Damon McCoy use vehicles as an analogy to explain recommender systems to help users & policymakers make more informed decisions. knightcolumbia.org/content/into...

A team of archivists has recreated the pre-Trump CDC website as a live, easy-to-navigate website that should be indexed by Google. The team is hosting it in Europe. Cool project that is sadly necessary: www.404media.co/archivists-r...