A new survey from @knightfoundation.org and @ssrsresearch.bsky.social reveals a disquieting decline in how free Americans feel to use the freedoms protected by the #FirstAmendment without government interference or punishment. 🧵

Knight Foundation-SSRS Poll: Americans Feel Free Expression is Eroding - Knight Foundation

For more than two decades, Knight Foundation has commissioned research to better understand Americans’ lived experience with the First Amendment and free expression. As the country marks its 250th ann...

knightfoundation.org

People potentially subject to the nyc pied-à-terre tax are being treated with 1% of the administrative hostility of SNAP and Medicaid applicants, and they’re throwing 100x the fit

Wonderful talk by @sjgreenwood.bsky.social about @paper-feed.bsky.social! Custom feeds on Bluesky are unique resources for researchers interested in recommendation algorithms #IC2S2 Featuring many Bluesky friends like @graze.social @devingaffney.com @kissane.myatproto.social @aendra.com

I truly believe that the next trend in AI-generated fuckery will be the manipulation of operational images, such satellite images & medical scans—technical visual documents whose default (para)empirical status can be leveraged. Google playing its part in recreationally extinguishing the evidentiary.

Eliot Higgins@eliothiggins.bsky.social · 5d ago

Google Earth, a tool often used as a source of satellite imagery to verify photos and videos, has added a feature that allows you to alter satellite imagery with AI, for reasons. blog.google/products-and...

I wrote this lead and despite *knowing* it's very dumb I still really like it.

Penn Center on Media, Technology, and Democracy (MEDIATED)@penn-mediated.bsky.social · 6d ago

AN A-EYE FOR AN A-EYE? Ask an AI model what happens when someone breaks a social norm, and it predicts retaliation. Ask humans, and the answer is usually forgiveness. According to new research from Lyle Ungar, LLMs consistently imagine a harsher social world than humans. (1/6)

@katestarbird.bsky.social is my hero. @ic2s2.bsky.social

We're thrilled to welcome three new Knight Fellows (joining us this fall) to our community of researchers studying the information ecosystem and its impact on democracy - Postdoc Thomas Chamberlain; Postdoc Burak Ozturan; and PhD Student Jacky Liang. infodem.upenn.edu/blog/#knight...

Great paper from Duncan Watts: LLM-based content reranking improves personalization & aligns video recommendations more closely to users’ prior viewing. Very interesting tho unclear if there is significant deployment of LLM-based recommenders systems at present? infodem.upenn.edu/research-com...

Jobs! (part-time, but still, jobs!) Would especially love to find a motivated young scholar for our Research Analyst posting - recommendations and shares welcome.

Penn Center on Media, Technology, and Democracy (MEDIATED)@penn-mediated.bsky.social · 3w ago

📣 We're hiring for two part-time positions at Penn MEDIATED! We have two openings for people who want to help communicate essential science of the information ecosystem to the journalists, policymakers, and civil society organizations who need it most. (1/3)

The @npr.org politics podcast yesterday spent an episode on why the US keeps getting into foreign wars -- naming Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran -- that it can't win without saying the word "Republican." Again, this is the _politics_ podcast. @tamarakeithnpr.bsky.social ya'll need to do better

How did the narrative “DEI is discrimination against white people” gain traction? Well, new research from Matt Levendusky has the answer and our research compendium covered it and lots more! 🧵

After three years of quiet work and debate, Congresswoman @sarajacobs.house.gov introduced the Sectoral AI Governance Act (SAGA), looking to empower federal agencies to better regulate AI. sarajacobs.house.gov/news/press-r...

Rep. Sara Jacobs Introduces Bill to Hold AI Accountable For Breaking the Law | U.S. Congresswoman Sara Jacobs Of California's 51st District

The Official U.S. Congressional website of Congresswoman Sara Jacobs

sarajacobs.house.gov

How is knowingly benefiting from rank and obvious corruption on your behalf and to your immediate benefit distinguishable from cheating? I understand the red card was a bad call. I understand it's FIFA's decision. I understand USMNT didn't ask. Still. Seems pretty much like cheating.

Absolutely fascinating research although it will very much depress you to learn the degree to which Dems abandoned the public debate over racial justice issues

Penn Center on Media, Technology, and Democracy (MEDIATED)@penn-mediated.bsky.social · last mo.

How did the narrative “DEI is discrimination against white people” gain traction? Well, new research from Matt Levendusky has the answer and our research compendium covered it and lots more! 🧵

We are delighted to announce that Penn MEDIATED is now a member of the @thegni.bsky.social! It's an honor to be a part of the community advancing a free and democratic technological future, and we are enthused to contribute Penn’s science of the information ecosystem to GNI’s vital discussions.

Global Network Initiative @thegni.bsky.social · 2mo ago

📣 GNI is pleased to welcome the Penn Center on Media, Technology and Democracy (Penn MEDIATED) to its academic constituency as a member. globalnetworkinitiative.org/gni-welcomes...

📣 GNI is pleased to welcome the Penn Center on Media, Technology and Democracy (Penn MEDIATED) to its academic constituency as a member. globalnetworkinitiative.org/gni-welcomes...

GNI Welcomes New Member: Penn MEDIATED - Global Network Initiative

GNI is pleased to welcome Penn MEDIATED to its academic constituency as a member.

globalnetworkinitiative.org

An awkward ED thing is you write more staged quotes for PR purposes but I AM ACTUALLY honored that @penn-mediated.bsky.social has joined @thegni.bsky.social And we're grateful to Jason Pielemeier, Montserrat Legorreta, and all the GNI selection folks for their support!

Penn Center on Media, Technology, and Democracy (MEDIATED)@penn-mediated.bsky.social · 2mo ago

We are delighted to announce that Penn MEDIATED is now a member of the @thegni.bsky.social! It's an honor to be a part of the community advancing a free and democratic technological future, and we are enthused to contribute Penn’s science of the information ecosystem to GNI’s vital discussions.

Trying to quickly describe reasoning models without being overly credulous Currently: "...models that iterate through several steps and approaches to respond to a prompt, often called reasoning models." thoughts?

Writing about automated content moderation - it's amazing how many papers were focused on toxicity, with the comparison point being the Perspective API The sunsetting of the API means a loss for reproducibility And, this will probably be the case for many papers based on commercial LLMs

🤔 How often will an AI search engine cite AI slop? This answer and more in our updated LLM & Civic Discourse dashboard: (1/5) infodem.upenn.edu/llm-civic-di...

LLM Civic Discourse - Center on Media, Technology and Democracy

News, announcements, and insights from the Penn Center on Media, Technology, and Democracy.

infodem.upenn.edu

I kind of understand how to computer, and yet I have been prevented from using two websites today, one an essential public service, and one necessary for my job, by reCAPTCHA.

It’s been the highlight of our week to see all the announcements from defenders of democracy accepted into the Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab)'s Digital Sherlocks! We're proud to partner on this essential effort to counter autocratic manipulation of the information ecosystem

roberts and alito have concocted a jurisprudence in which constitutional amendments explicitly ratified to secure the right of black americans to vote now restrain congress from securing the right of black americans to vote.

Cool gig alert! jobs.gusto.com/postings/tec...

BREAKING: we just won our Kennedy Center case! Both the renaming & the closure of the Kennedy Center are enjoined Kudos to our wonderful client @repbeatty.bsky.social & my colleagues @democracydefendersaction.org & Washington Litigation Group This is a 1-2 punch against Trump's corruption

Trying to get people to read summaries of our new research and seeing I'm competing with @tressiemcphd.bsky.social saying she will deadlift her enemies and tbqh I suspect I'm not on her level

Penn Center on Media, Technology, and Democracy (MEDIATED)@penn-mediated.bsky.social · 2mo ago

🧵Is church and state truly separate in the U.S.? New research suggests, not so much. Penn's Yphtach Lelkes analyzed 88,546 sermons across three election cycles—14.7% of evangelical churches engaged in political advocacy, spiking right before Election Day. 6 new studies. A thread: 👇

STAT is seeking an ambitious and intellectually curious reporter to cover one of the defining issues in medicine, science, and public health today: declining trust in science. www.statnews.com/careers/stat...

STAT, Reporter, Trust-in-Science

About STAT In November 2015, STAT was launched as a new national media brand focused on health, medicine, and life sciences. Since then, we have grown to

statnews.com

New, from me: The self-proclaimed "Most Transparent Administration in History" wants to compel all federal employees to sign Non Disclosure Agreements. The purpose is to vastly expand the culture of secrecy in government, undermining accountability. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/trump-want...

Trump wants all federal employees to sign NDAs

A breathtaking expansion of the culture of governmental secrecy

donmoynihan.substack.com

In the @inquirer.com, @geurkink.bsky.social clearly lays out the unambiguous reality that the Trump administration is engaging in a censorship campaign against researchers of technology companies and the information ecosystem. www.inquirer.com/opinion/comm...

The U.S. is targeting the researchers who help us understand the effects of social media | Opinion

Those at risk include nonprofit workers who fact-check misinformation about natural disasters and disease outbreaks on social media, and who may now be forced to leave the country or abandon the work.

inquirer.com

For those of you already missing Stephen Colbert, he's resurfaced on community public access in Monroe, Michigan, and no, I am not joking: youtu.be/jJTXB5uT_C4

Only In Monroe --- May 22, 2026

YouTube video by Stephen Colbert

youtu.be