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

BOOM. The AAUP is suing Texas A&M University System over their censorship policy that prohibits faculty from discussing topics & viewpoints related to race, sexual orientation, & gender. www.aclutx.org/app/uploads/... 1

Anyone in the research world using Meltwater and/or Brandwatch for data access? Other recommendations?

“All of the speculation and hype around A.I. is hiding the fact that the technology isn’t just large language models or agents or data centers. It is the backbone of a superstructure that merges regressive politics with unchecked economic power in the guise of technological innovation.”

Opinion | Want to Fight Back Against Big Tech? Start Here. (Gift Article)

A.I. is a political theory. And it is gobbling up our democracy.

nytimes.com

The devastation is unimaginable. I moved here 3 years ago knowing Spokane would be my home. I can’t explain how horrific this is. “It’s like a war zone,” people told me.

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

Combing through Facebook this morning, looking at the early origins of the anti-trans athletes campaign here in WA state. Found an AI-filtered image used to drastically masculinize the appearance of the trans girl athlete… perhaps the origin of the “young girls competing against grown men” line.

America votes in more than 10,000 different election jurisdictions, each with different rules set by state and sometimes local governments. That structure makes the nation's elections extraordinarily complicated — and also safe from widespread fraud. https://to.pbs.org/3T4duz3

Here's what makes American elections so complicated and secure

One of the strongest security features of U.S. elections is the fact that they aren’t conducted at the federal level.

to.pbs.org

If you're curious about how the right is going to try to frame the horrific fires in Spokane Washington, it looks like they plan to blame them on homeless people, local (DEM) city leadership, and state (DEM) mismanagement of forests. So, many of the same frames as the LA fires.

100% supportive of this sentiment. The WNBA needs a crash course in online information dynamics and media manipulation. ASAP. Old school crisis response plans are going to fail spectacularly.

Ben Collins@bencollins.bsky.social · 3d ago

A good commissioner steps in now before every WNBA game becomes a rightwing performance space, like school board meetings were during peak CRT. You just have to throw the hammer down on this. Do not give them an inch.

A good commissioner steps in now before every WNBA game becomes a rightwing performance space, like school board meetings were during peak CRT. You just have to throw the hammer down on this. Do not give them an inch.

taylr@taylordahlin.com · 3d ago

riley gaines is at the minnesota lynx vs indiana fever game posing with people courtside as they line up for photos

Here’s the moment when one of my PhD student’s (Joey Schafer) research on Bluesky influencers intersects with my other PhD students’ (Nina Lutz and Adiza Awwal) research on visual representation (and propaganda) within WNBA discourse. Honestly didn’t see this coming…

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3d ago

Sophie Cunningham is getting booed every time she touches the ball here in Minneapolis

Free and fair elections depend on voters being able to cast a ballot without fear or intimidation. That's why federal law and many state laws prohibit armed federal agents at polling sites and ban voter intimidation. Our latest resource breaks down the law. bit.ly/4yOProg

Preventing Voter Intimidation by Federal Agents at the Polls

Any deployment that intimidates voters or interferes with elections would be illegal. Should one occur, officials and civil society are prepared to challenge illegal acts so that voting can proceed uninterrupted.

brennancenter.org

Had the tab open for weeks but finally read the New Yorker's Tate brothers expose. Among many thoughts: that reporting ought to be an existential emergency for MAGA and the international far right, but the reaction is eerily mute due (perhaps) to the decline of reading and weak political opposition.

Our relationship to visual evidence is being profoundly disrupted by GenAI tools, which will impact how we know, what we can know, and what we think can be known about the world. A massive epistemological shift is upon us.

Faine Greenwood@faineg.bsky.social · 5d ago

I used to do some work on the ethical use of satellite and drone imagery for aid and disaster response, and it is genuinely hard to express in words what a dangerous, stupid thing Google is doing by making it easy to use GenAI to create faked satellite imagery:

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

I wrote an article about audience capture of athlete-influencers. I drafted it the morning of July 28, so prior to the Fever-Storm game (and all that ensued). Some of the these dynamics have been developing for a few years now, but are just bubbling to the surface. open.substack.com/pub/katestar...

Captured by the Crowd: The Hidden Risk for Athlete-Influencers

The real risk for internet influencers — a class of celebrities that increasingly includes professional athletes — isn’t “falling down rabbit holes," but being “captured” and radicalized by their audi...

open.substack.com

Watch it till the end. This is moral clarity -- TMZ understands the moment, and what that Rand Paul kangaroo court was, better than any coverage I've seen so far. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zaO...

This Is Personal

YouTube video by TMZ

youtube.com

The GOP scapegoating attacks on Dr. Fauci, a spectacle designed to affirm the conspiracy theories of a brain-wormed base, are chilling. What scientist or public servant, in their right minds, will choose to put themselves on the line during the next pandemic or crisis? www.cnn.com/2026/07/29/p...

Dr. Anthony Fauci repeatedly invokes the Fifth in dramatic Senate hearing about Covid pandemic | CNN Politics

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who led the US government response to the Covid-19 pandemic, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, refusing to testify Wednesday just minutes into a Capitol ...

cnn.com

Ruby (the wonder puppy) also encourages folks to let trans kids play sports — and oppose I-638. This initiative will be on the ballot in WA state this fall. Please help educate your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, acquaintances. And vote.

No Hate in WA State@nohateinwastate.bsky.social · last wk.

Retired WNBA player & Naismith College Player of the Year winner @katestarbird.bsky.social joins soccer champ Megan Rapinoe in opposing I-638: "The 'unintended consequences' of this [initiative] will impact every girl playing sports in WA state." Vote NO on I-638 this November. #NoHateWAState

Retired WNBA player & Naismith College Player of the Year winner @katestarbird.bsky.social joins soccer champ Megan Rapinoe in opposing I-638: "The 'unintended consequences' of this [initiative] will impact every girl playing sports in WA state." Vote NO on I-638 this November. #NoHateWAState

Pls share: U of Washington has an opening for a tenure-track faculty position at the rank of Assistant Professor. This position is expected to specialize in molecular virology or bacteriology. Here is a link: microbiology.washington.edu/index.php/ne...

Do we have a term yet for how an “influencer” descends to madness via engaging with the replies of their rabid audiences?

David Roberts@volts.wtf · last wk.

Every Republican who passively watches on as the president loses his mind in public deserves to be loudly & repeatedly condemned in public. Everyone has decided that Republicans don't give a shit so it's not worth stating the obvious, but it *is* worth stating the obvious.

From racist, xenophobic propaganda to racist, xenophobic policy.

Catherine Rampell@crampell.bsky.social · last wk.

TPS for Haitians officially expires tomorrow. ICE is planning big operations, with Springfield, Ohio among the targets www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-hai...

It feels like the whole world is on fire.

Daniel Swain@weatherwest.bsky.social · 2w ago

The extraordinary wildfire outbreak across Oregon, eastern Washington, and southern British Columbia has become even more alarming amid critical fire weather conditions. Over 500,000 acres have already burned in OR & WA alone, and that number could be >1 million acres by Mon.

Cecilia Vega says she was pressured by Bari Weiss and other CBS execs to include misinformation and political bias in reporting that aired this year. "Never in my career, until now, have I felt that those edits, that those suggestions, came from a place of misinformation or politics."

“60 Minutes” correspondent says Bari Weiss pressured her to report on events that “never happened”

Cecilia Vega said CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss pressured her to include “misinformation” and “political bias” in several news segments.

ms.now

Scene: On the couch, my dog stares out the window down from our condo, stressed. I assume she's watching the marching bands warming up in the street below. I sit beside her to take in the scene. On a balcony below us, a neighbor struggles to dislodge a seagull who has commandeered the barbecue.

In honor of the WNBA All-Star game & the Navy sailors assembling for the Seattle torchlight parade below my window, I want to share one of my favorite WNBA memories: 7'2" Margo Dydek flirting, quite successfully, with a group of sub-6' uniformed sailors after a game against the Portland Fire ~2001.

Seattle's Torthlight Parade is tonight, and the staging is taking place a few blocks from my home. I'm currently watching a group of about 30 sailors in their white sailor suits warm up their band instruments. It's pretty fantastic.

There's an inside baseball misinformation studies point I want to make here about enduring five years of the political science and sociology folks saying: "people online don't really believe this stuff, this is all just downstream expression" and what an obvious crock that was.

Jonathan V. Last@jvl.bsky.social · 2w ago

Worst part of the new @status.news report is that the Bari Weiss team appears to get its view of what is actually happening in the world from Twitter. They were asking Vega to include things that *weren't real* b/c they didn't know any better. www.status.news/p/cecilia-ve...