What an incredible summary of our recent report on our election rumor research at UW CIP! Thank you! Cc: @katestarbird.bsky.social

Last week I wrote about how these rumor disasters happen and a little comms advice on how to prep and respond. But the @cip.uw.edu recently wrote a approach that could be expanded to inoculate communities by covering in real time how rumors spread. 🧵 /1

Thanks for highlighting our recent report, @emmettoconnell.bsky.social! (Cc: @danielletomson.bsky.social @katestarbird.bsky.social)

Since 2020, our team has iterated on a model for “rapid research” to help surface, analyze, & resolve rumors about election administration. This work demonstrates an innovative role for researchers to support public sensemaking during rapidly unfolding events. uw.pressbooks.pub/rapidresearc...

I'm proud to be a co-author on this new @cip.uw.edu report with my colleagues @danielletomson.bsky.social, @katestarbird.bsky.social @mertcanbayar.bsky.social and @emmaspiro.bsky.social. Check out Kate's 🧵 ...

Check out this recent @seattletimes.com op-ed by @cip.uw.edu research manager @danielletomson.bsky.social ⤵️⤵️⤵️

In today’s @seattletimes.com, I share my concept of the Authenticity Gap, when our stories and experiences don’t align. Now more than ever, we need a new generation of sensemakers willing to explain things as they are, while roadmapping where we would like to go. www.seattletimes.com/opinion/in-t...

@schumer.senate.gov would be better off spending time at the Kabbalah center right now than doing a focus group

The thing about living in Western PA is that you think when you go elsewhere in the world, people just know what “nebby” or “yinz” means

So many small fandoms that went MAGA eventually added up. Yet these individual constituencies don’t necessarily aligned. Im not sure incoherent groups make up a coherent ideology but let’s see..

Wrote a thing at how the Bukele/Trump meeting, full of absolute nonsense and bullshit in support of out-and-out fascism and despotism, is yet another dark day in America. www.techdirt.com/2025/04/14/t...

Everybody just wants to cosplay worker.

If politics is downstream from culture, what is culture downstream from?

Today I’m missing Todd Gitlin.

"Also terminated is a project led by economist and political scientist Christopher Blattman at the University of Chicago that aims to better understand how drug cartels in Colombia are organized and operate and how they recruit new members." www.science.org/content/arti...

country went to hell when auto shops put these in in place of a glass carafe that had been on the burner continuously since the Truman administration

18F was doing exactly the type of work that DOGE claims to want – yet we were eliminated shortly after midnight. Read our letter to the American people: 18f.org

Dear friend and ER doctor (for veterans and during COVID in NYC) is a bit too busy saving lives than to give responses beyond this one that won’t be read and are asked for in bad faith.

I was told by a few to post this on here. So Hello BlueSky! While working at the VA I’ve gotten to know, treat and help our veterans. So when I received the DOGE email, it struck a cord. But I’m a model federal employee, and to avoid a no reply = resignation. I responded. How’d I do? #doge

I wrote about the Free Press's shameful decision to publish Hanania's apologia for Nazi salutes www.unpopularfront.news/p/enough

I don’t know if Google can top this, their finest work to date

David Icke, notorious English peddler of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about lizard people, is calling out Elon Musk on Twitter and it is fascinating to watch:

These are the same attention dynamics that feed the spread of rumors and partisan outrage, have been effectively exploited by right wing populists around the world, and are reconfiguring global politics. But sure, Facebook, go for it!

A powerful talk (that should be published in a book essay someday,) going over the different “phases” of rumor and disinformation research of the past decade, with a powerful call to action. @katestarbird.bsky.social is a legend who I am honored to work with www.youtube.com/live/YnJ5o09...

Lots of folks are disappointed with the “Left” for being in such disarray. Yet in these moments, I’m also wondering, what about those Constitutional Conservative Textualists? Where are they? Can’t we also want them to step up more? (Danielle Sassoon aside)

This is why the paper form for the news still wins for me.

There are so many of @aresluna.org pieces I’ve loved over the years, but this tribute to Gorton has to be one of my most favorite. aresluna.org/the-hardest-...

This is a critical point. The Trumpists (and other successful movements at the moment) understand the “social construction of reality” as a strategy, not just a descriptive theory.

The “Weaponization of Government” committee continues its bizarro claims that university speech is “censorship”, and brags about its role in shutting down that speech, while using two conspiracy theorist / Substack salesmen as their star witnesses.

Time to drink the Right’s Milkshake by reclaiming transgressive politics. By me on my Substack. “The Milkshake Doctrine.” open.substack.com/pub/failuret...

The circus is starting: Jim Jordan, Taibbi & Shellenberger are congratulating themselves on Twitter Files. Jordan opens by gloating ab getting Stanford Internet Observatory shut down. Yes: the congressman got 1A protected research shut down. That's censorship. www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7G5...

I now have a new dream. A sit down with @petebuttigieg.bsky.social to discuss his father’s work in Gramsci and his reflections on how the American Right has engaged these ideas so heavily.

Masnick explains how Musk is doing a Twitter Files on the whole U.S. government: "The danger isn’t just bad policy — it’s the replacement of accountable governance with conspiracy-driven chaos that threatens everything from disaster response to diplomatic relations." www.techdirt.com/2025/02/03/t...

A new political order has announced itself. Who are its biggest stakeholders? Hint: those who have the most to win in this “Year of the Coin.” open.substack.com/pub/failuret...

With all the crypto events in DC for inauguration, this next four years seems like “The Age of Speculation.” Attention? That was the buzzword in 2016, 2020. Now people just wanna get rich and you don’t need attention to make millions on Trump coin.

An earthquake alert in CDMX. Three posts in English and Spanish on Bluesky but a lot more activity on Threads and X. Interesting to see where folks flock to still for emergency posting. Alerta del Sismo en CDMX pero no hay mucho aquí en Bluesky…

The CEO of Watch Duty used his skills as a software engineer to build the app to amplify fire safety information as a public service: “Techies are obsessed with going to Mars and inventing an AGI robot to do art. But I’m obsessed with time and life.” sfstandard.com/2025/01/09/w...

Coping with the news that Dana White (president of the UFC) has been appointed to Meta's board? Perhaps it's useful to see how the dynamics of social media and improvisational entertainment (pro wrestling, improv) are already intertwined with today's politics: theconversation.com/how-right-wi...

This piece made me furious. Nurses are asked to *bid* on shifts, offering to work lower and lower wages, and then the app can fail and not pay them at all. We don't have a nursing shortage, we have a shortage of good jobs sane humans are willing to work. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...

Skepticism on the left about the 2024 U.S. election results “was everywhere” on social media, “but it didn’t go viral,” @cip.uw.edu research manager @danielletomson.bsky.social told @nytimes.com in an interview. “There was no coherent narrative.” www.nytimes.com/2024/12/18/t...

Right-wing media operates like #improv theater, with influencers as performers and audiences as active participants. #Researchers explain how this dynamic ecosystem shapes reality for many Americans. https://buff.ly/3CSLpm3 Danielle Lee Tomson and @katestarbird.bsky.social @uofwa.bsky.social)

The Millennial urge to capitalize on micro-skeet fame. Yet post pandemic, I’m so comfy not regularly using social media….

My colleague @danielletomson.bsky.social and I published an article in The Conversation expanding upon the metaphor that the dynamics of right-wing/conservative media look a lot like improv theater: theconversation.com/how-right-wi...

Want to understand right-wing media? Take a UCB improv class. Fun piece by @katestarbird.bsky.social and me in @theconversation.com theconversation.com/how-right-wi...

“Let’s see if all these journalists change Bluesky” ~Logs in after minimal skeeting for months~ “Still talking about Alf I see.” Noice.

Yesterday, chatter about the arson attempt on a ballot dropbox in Vancouver, WA took off on Bluesky — one of the fastest election rumors we’ve seen here. Most skeets focused on the arson (true), though some speculated (unsubstantied) about a connection to far-right groups like the Proud Boys.

The threat of widespread noncitizen voting isn’t real. It’s a conspiracy theory with racist roots, the manifestation of a well-funded conservative activist, the fever dream of thousands of volunteers who meet on zoom. And it’s already doing real harm. www.nbcnews.com/politics/202...

In 2020, researchers documented how rumors about election fraud were motivated and then mobilized by Trump and his supporters to contest the election. In 2024, this rumor generating/mobilizing machine is increasingly mature. Our team breaks down how it works: uwcip.substack.com/p/making-the...

Our team just published a "rapid research post" tracking speculative rumors about an updated DOD directive — alleging a connection to potential political violence around the 2024 election — as they spread across/between communities and social media platforms. uwcip.substack.com/p/rumors-rap...