CITR just submitted a request to intervene on behalf of technology researchers in the X v. European Commission case to explain the importance of the DSA’s data access rules to the CJEU. (⅓) independenttechresearch.org/citr-members...

Claude Code is so fun. Two random projects I did over the weekend: What do Super Bowl ads tell us about the economy: brandonsilverman77.github.io/superbowlads/ What values do we sing about during half-time? brandonsilverman77.github.io/halftime/ Spoiler alert: Bad Bunny was great.

A few years ago I tried to build the RSS reader I always wanted: author-based and delivered over email. RSS was ultimately too unwieldy to make it super feasible...but LLMs have offically solved that. So, here's the newly revamped and souped up version! www.joinbyline.com

My second post about researchers’ rights to scrape data under DSA Article 40.12 is up! This is dense with legal arguments for researchers to use if they get sued. Or to show their lawyers before that. www.techpolicy.press/how-the-mean... verfassungsblog.de/dsa-fine-x-r...

How the Meaning of 'Publicly Accessible' Shapes Researcher Data Rights Under the DSA | TechPolicy.Press

Researchers eager to begin work under DSA Article 40(12) may be deterred by uncertainty about what data counts as 'publicly accessible,' writes Daphne Keller.

techpolicy.press

Leaving this here...

Daphne Keller@daphnek.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Don't let anyone tell you that the Commission's DSA enforcement against X is about speech or censorship. That would, indeed, be interesting. But this is just the EU enforcing some normal, boring laws that would get bipartisan support in the U.S. (I bet similar bills *have* had that support.) 1/

👇👇👇👇

Daphne Keller@daphnek.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Don't let anyone tell you that the Commission's DSA enforcement against X is about speech or censorship. That would, indeed, be interesting. But this is just the EU enforcing some normal, boring laws that would get bipartisan support in the U.S. (I bet similar bills *have* had that support.) 1/

EU has fined X $140m for breaking European laws and refusing to address that when warned. Likely Musk won't pay and the Trump regime will pressure EU, but if so, they should stand strong and ban the website. And oh the irony that this won't cover the UK, where Musk is stoking division and violence.

If you include the earlier Reuters deal, then 50% of the sourcing of U.S. news-related AI answers for Meta chatbots will come from outlets ostensibly trying to serve a broad, diverse national audience...and the other 50% come from explicitly, self-defining conservative outlets. Good times.

Exclusive: Meta strikes multiple AI deals with news publishers

Meta's new partners include USA Today, People Inc., CNN, Fox News, The Daily Caller, Washington Examiner and Le Monde.

axios.com

This is basically Shattered Glass but for academia? All the way down to creating fake company websites...https://www.wsj.com/economy/aidan-toner-rodgers-mit-ai-research-78753243?st=NGTDig&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Just finished Brother's Karamazov for the first time. As Dostoevsky is to Tolstoy, Tolkien is to G.R.R. Martin?

NEW REPORT 💻 @annalenhart.bsky.social and @brandonsilverman.bsky.social interviewed 18 high-profile social media figures about how they view privacy. Many policymakers assume that public data from prominent accounts involve lower expectations of privacy. Is that the case? Read here: bit.ly/4peorZB.

Performing in Autonomy Theater | Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics (IDDP) | Columbian College of Arts & Sciences | The George Washington University

Balancing the needs of social media researchers with perspectives of high profile figures.

iddp.gwu.edu

We live in a two-tiered system—where corporations & brands buy access to the data they need and public interest researchers are locked out. One customer representative candidly admitted: "Even when they added more restrictions on Facebook, we found a way to get more data."

Tech Policy Press@techpolicypress.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Despite new EU transparency laws, researchers are still blocked from vital social media data, while corporations buy the same information freely, argues Brandon Silverman. The result: a two-tier system that shields platforms from scrutiny and weakens democratic oversight.

Needless to say, strongly agree with @ebakerwhite.bsky.social in this op-ed in the Times this morning! www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/o...

Opinion | Legislators Should Force Social Media Platforms to Tell the Truth

nytimes.com

This new report from @brandonsilverman.bsky.social and @naomishiffman.bsky.social is great. It documents numerous concrete cases in which platform transparency (or scraping-based research) has had significant real-world impact. iddp.gwu.edu/sites/g/file...

Anyone know what video was actually played?

Trump leans into widely disputed claims about "white genocide" in S. Africa

Trump played a controversial video to emphasize his claims about white Afrikaners facing racial violence.

axios.com

Unsubscribe from campaign text messaging is obviously broken. We need a mechanism for more upstream unsubscribes...campaigns should have to tell you *where* they got your number and you should be able to remove yourself from the source list.

The worst happened. We were DOGE’d. Our NSF funding is gone. So now there’s nothing stopping me from sharing Expert Voices Together, a crisis response system for US-based researchers and journalists facing harassment. It's a true passion project. 🧵 1/ expertvoicestogether.org

Rebekah Tromble@rebekahtromble.bsky.social · last yr.

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...

My useless contribution to the Qatar plane news cycle is that people are severely underestimating the economics of private jet ownership.

This morning, @naomishiffman.bsky.social and I published a report that helps make the case for why online platform transparency is so important by looking at *specific, concrete case studies* where data sharing led to real-world impact. Link to the report and 🧵 with more details below!

Looks like we finally found the censorship industrial complex. I'm sure the Twitter Files conspiracy theorists will be all over it any day now. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

They Criticized Musk on X. Then Their Reach Collapsed.

Three users who disagreed with the site’s owner saw views for their posts plummet.

nytimes.com

Just submitted my first suggestion. Super easy process and such a useful tracker.

Thanks for the bump @mmasnick.bsky.social! And whole thing started with a BlueSky post from @moskov.goodventures.org. Have had a ton of user submissions and just need to go through and approve them all now...

Mike Masnick@masnick.com · last yr.

An attempt to create a dashboard of who is capitulating and who is fighting back against unconstitutional gov't pressure and demands...

This site gets an A+ in design. It's simple, but effective. It's fast. The background isn't blindingly white. There is still strong contrast between the text and background. It looks good on desktop AND mobile.

Brandon Silverman@brandonsilverman.bsky.social · last yr.

Think the site is pretty much good to go at this point! trackingourinstitutions.com

Nearly half of people currently detained by ICE/CBP have no criminal charges, yet some are being held in conditions that would be unacceptable in high-security prisons. Admin has eliminated oversight bodies ensured health/safety requirements are met www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Immigrants forced to sleep on floors at overwhelmed ICE detention centers

Some immigrant detention centers across the country are over capacity. The administration has asked for emergency contracts to add more facilities.

washingtonpost.com

General purpose decision making tree for my 10 year-old:

New from me: an essay on the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, and its remarkable 30 year history of witch hunts & blacklists. It chronicles the progression of how industries & academia went from capitulation to defiance,& what we can take from that today www.lawfaremedia.org/article/proc...

Oh. "This is about whether we have functional constitutional government in this country. If the IRS can go after you because of what you think or what you believe or what you do, we'd no longer live in a free country.“

I’m profoundly disappointed that the only bias Meta apparently tested for in Llama 4 was *ideological* bias so no one will call them woke. Seems political appeasement is more important at Meta than preventing actual race & gender discrimination in their AI’s decisionmaking.

When someone writes the book on Facebook and their role in news & politics over the decades, the last four words of this announcement should be the title. It perfectly captures the complete total capitulation to their bad faith critics.

So much for the so-called "Censorship Industrial Complex" that fuels so much of the white right's victimhood complex, and led to countless hearings in the GOP-controlled Congress. Data scientists say differently. c/o @techpolicypress.bsky.social www.techpolicy.press/scientists-r...