Ian Axel Anderson
@aanixel.bsky.social
Postdoc @ Caltech Technology researcher, Surfer, Poet They/he
Was great to discuss my research related to social media habits and addiction on @laist.com’s AirTalk yesterday morning. Episode is now available here: laist.com/news/social-...
Social media addiction and safety, Big Bear eagle Jackie dies, friendslop gaming and more
Today on AirTalk: Social media trial, what makes social media safe, Big Bear eagle Jackie dies, California ballot counting and friendslop gaming.
laist.com
We keep asking what social media does to voters. The wrong end of the pipe. Platforms don't just distribute politics — they teach political actors what kind of speech pays. So I measured the going rate: what X, Bluesky and Mastodon reward in public speech. 🧵 arxiv.org/abs/2607.04220
The Trump administration tried to use visa denials and deportation to silence researchers who study social media. A court said no. Sunday Tagliasacchi and Elisabeth Snyder, former legal externs at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, break down the CITR v. Rubio ruling.
Trump Cannot Use Immigration Law to Silence Technology Researchers
Sunday Tagliasacchi and Elisabeth Snyder detail an initial court victory for the Coalition for Independent Technology Research in CITR v. Rubio.
buff.ly
Are you interested in smartphone interventions?📱 We are too. Specifically we were interested in increasing retention in a digital friction intervention. Let me tell you about our new preprint (1/n) with @dgruning.bsky.social @frederik.riedel.wtf @malte.the100.ci using one sec
Yes, this is 100% about censorship in general, and the current anti-sexual weirdness that’s going on. But a paragraph near the end of the article is especially telling… ASMR is primarily created by women. Women doing anything will always be perceived by some as inherently sexual (excerpt in comms)
Sam Cole@samleecole.bsky.social · 3w agoa bunch of popular ASMR artists lost their channels forever this week, after YouTube cited them for violating terms against "sexually gratifying" content: www.404media.co/youtube-asmr...
AI's benefits are concentrated in a few companies and countries, but its footprint is distributed, argue Jamila Venturini and Marina Meira from Derechos Digitales. They call for a global infrastructure to hold the AI supply chain accountable.
From the AI Accountability Gap to a Global Accountability Infrastructure
The first UN Global Dialogue recognized the problem. The next step is building an architecture capable of addressing it, write Jamila Venturini & Marina Meira.
buff.ly
As a member of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research @thecoalition.bsky.social I’m proud to celebrate this important milestone alongside the researchers, advocates, journalists, fact-checkers, and trust and safety workers this policy threatened. knightcolumbia.org/content/fede...
Federal Court Suspends Trump Immigration Policy Targeting Technology Researchers
knightcolumbia.org
Teenage boys show major declines in suicide across the globe as their social media use grew 83% of countries with reliable reporting show plunging suicide rates by teenage boys as social media proliferated.
Teenage boys show major declines in suicide across the globe as their social media use grew
83% of countries with reliable reporting show plunging suicide rates by teenage boys as social media proliferated. Does social media actually prevent suicide?
mikemales.substack.com
The more often you hear something, the more likely you are to believe that it is true. But please, don't believe everything you hear about teens today. Science and how well they are doing, despite the suffering of adults around them, tells a different story.
URGENT for California-based Scientists -- to pass the California Science Bond, which will help fund science in CA for years to come, we need to pressure Speaker Rivas to put the Bond up for a full vote in the State Assembly. Write a letter here! Takes 2 min :) actionnetwork.org/letters/stan...
Stand up for Science, Support SB 895
The California Science and Health Research Bond Act (SB 895) will create the California Foundation for Science and Health Research to ensure that life-saving and economically vital scientific, medical...
actionnetwork.org
“Instead of fixing the online world...we are punishing victims by taking away the places that they go to connect with friends, consume youth culture, and sadly, often escape people who are harming them offline.” NEW @candiceodgers.bsky.social Ted Talk: go.ted.com/candiceodgers #ConnectedLearning
What we're getting wrong about teens and tech
For years, the warning has been: smartphones are destroying a generation. But developmental psychologist Candice Odgers says that decades of data on teens tells a different story — violence, alcohol u...
go.ted.com
I literally don’t watch American coverage bc of lalas 😂 please say this is permanent lol
CJ Fogler@cjzero.bsky.social · 2mo agoRebecca: "Chaps, Alexi left us" Zlatan: "Who? Rebecca: "Alexi will be back, Alexi will be back with us very soon" Thierry: "Your plan worked, Rebecca" Rebecca: "Don't you bring me into this, no chance" Zlatan: "America, you're welcome" lmaooooooooooooooooo
'Enshittification' comes for all online products now, I guess... www.404media.co/lobotomized-...
‘Lobotomized’: Character.AI Is Showing What AI Enshittification Looks Like
Ads everywhere. Usage limits. Frustrating guardrails. Less model choice. Users of the Character.AI chatbot app are revolting after a series of changes they say have made the app worse.
404media.co
Was interesting to read up on the Yondr study, which found very negligible impact of using phone pouches in schools and hear from its author: Author interview: holdenthorp.substack.com/p/my-discuss... Piece on the Yondr pouches: holdenthorp.substack.com/p/social-med...
My discussion with Tom Dee, an author on the Yondr study on phones in schools
"If someone said they were disappointing, that would feel sensible to me"
holdenthorp.substack.com
Interesting report on 'dark patterns' in chatbot design: cdt.org/insights/dar...
Dark Patterns in AI Chatbots: A Taxonomy to Inform Better Design
In this report, CDT Research draws on prior work in human-computer interaction and deceptive design disciplines to investigate how established dark patterns documented in other digital technology cont...
cdt.org
Ian is trustworthy, and there are going to be people among the Minneapolis 15 who don't qualify for the Federal Public Defender and can't find a pro bono defense. Part of what the Feds are counting on is crushing defendants under massive legal costs to force them to flip and/or plead. Fight back.
Ian, in the Year of the Bean🫛🫘@mplsnightmayor.bsky.social · 2mo agoFundraiser for the 15 folks in Minnesota indicted yesterday for anti-ICE organizing, from a vetted source: chuffed.org/project/1865...
this 💯 And also sharing out the work of others. The work you are excited to engage with, the work that has moved you or shaped your thinking.
HR @ Weyland-Yutani@professormusgrave.bsky.social · 2mo agoYes, self promotion sucks, academics, but if you don’t do it nobody will find out about your work. The point is to publish and be read, not publish and hope you are discovered by fate, lifted out of a humble and pure obscurity so that you may be both famous and retiring
Not only are these bans ineffective and likely harmful to marginalized teens (and for some of their proponents, that's the point), they seem to allow politicians to wash their hands of regulating these companies in a substantive way. They couldn't even be bothered to listen to actual researchers 🫠.
Techdirt@techdirt.com · 2mo agoThe UK’s Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is not having a particularly good time of being the UK's leader.... https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/16/the-uks-teen-social-media-ban-is-political-theater-not-child-safety-policy/
A lot of the “kids online safety” proponents actually are anti-LGBTQ extremists and fundamentalists who want kids to have less freedom and don’t care if that actually makes them tremendously less safe too
Found this timeline graphic to be really interesting -- and overall is a very useful summary of how Europe is trying to reduce dependence on American tech -- including social media platforms www.wired.com/story/all-th...
All the Ways Europe Is Ditching American Technology
A WIRED timeline shows how dozens of governments, companies, and other organizations across Europe are moving, or planning to shift, away from US Big Tech.
wired.com
Interesting opinion piece from @williambrady.bsky.social and @elijfinkel.bsky.social about the role of engagement-based incentives in design of AI chatbots (based on what we learned about these incentives in social media platforms) www.chicagotribune.com/2026/06/07/o...
William J. Brady and Eli J. Finkel: Social media polarized us. AI is about to make it worse.
Social media platforms didn’t intend to polarize America. They intended to maximize engagement, and polarization was the byproduct.
chicagotribune.com
NEW: Hackers say that they used Meta’s AI support chatbot to break into a host of high-profile Instagram profiles by asking the support bot to change the email address associated with the target account.
Hackers Simply Asked Meta AI to Give Them Access to High-Profile Instagram Accounts. It Worked
The exploit shows the extreme risk of offloading technical support to AI.
404media.co
✨New paper out @nature.com ✨ For 8 weeks around the 2024 US election, we randomly assigned 2,000 people to use social media algos we built ourselves. Do engagement-based algorithms amplify intergroup, moral & emotional (IME) content—and does that distort how we see political norms? 🧵🔗 👇
🥴 One of the issues with the present community notes structure on social media platforms (in addition to the fact that they aren't often fast enough to head off misinfo spread) is that they can be vulnerable to brigading tactics...and now, AI-based bot 'fact checkers'...
8 AI bots now write 50% of X’s Community Notes
The crowdsourced moderation project faces a choice between scale and legitimacy
indicator.media
BREAKING: Boston City Council just unanimously passed a resolution condemning dangerous age verification and censorship laws, including the proposals put forward by @massgovernor.bsky.social and the MA House. Backlash to age gating social media is growing! www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2026-05...
NEW: Boston City Council Unanimously Passes Resolution Opposing Online Censorship and Age Verification Bills, Cites Harms to LGBTQ+ Lifesaving Online Resources
BOSTON, May 13, 2026 — TODAY, Boston City Council voted unanimously to adopt a resolution condemning dangerous and misguided censorship and age verification legislation, including the controversial pr...
fightforthefuture.org
NEW: In 2023, @404media.co reported on a marking firm claiming to sell "Active Listening" tech that would eavesdrop on people's phones and other devices for targeting ads. The FTC announced a settlement today that adds a new twist. @regret.bsky.social reports: www.wired.com/story/creepy...
‘Creepy’ Listening Tool for Targeted Ads Didn’t Actually Work, FTC Says
Three firms will pay nearly $1 million for selling “Active Listening” technology that they claimed tapped people’s phones for advertising. The FTC alleges the “tech” was just pricey email lists.
wired.com
Policymakers are legislating blanket bans on social media based on evidence that would be rejected in any other field of public health. Before imposing these draconian measures, they must listen to the experts sounding the alarm on oversimplified conclusions. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...
The Science is Not Settled: How Weak Evidence is Fueling a National
As statehouses ramp up for 2026, we’re seeing a familiar and concerning trend of lawmakers rushing to regulate the internet based on shockingly shaky science. From the California State Assembly to
eff.org
