Katy Glenn Bass
@katygb.bsky.social
Research Director, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University
How can higher education better withstand political attacks? In a new essay, @bakerdphd.bsky.social argues that power must be shifted away from governing boards and governments, and toward faculty, staff, students, and accreditors.
Reducing the Concentration of Power
knightcolumbia.org
Breaking: A federal court has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing an immigration policy targeting noncitizen researchers, advocates, fact-checkers, and trust and safety workers based on their work. knightcolumbia.org/content/fede...
Federal Court Suspends Trump Immigration Policy Targeting Technology Researchers
knightcolumbia.org
As I write here, it's totally incoherent to immunize the president from prosecution on the theory that he can be held accountable through the political process — and then to suppress the information that might allow Congress and the public to actually hold him accountable.
Jameel Jaffer@jameeljaffer.bsky.social · last mo.Trump has never had to account to the public for his hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Maybe a federal appeals court in Miami can do something about it. New from me about the outrageous suppression of the special counsel’s report. (Gift link.) www.nytimes.com/2026/06/29/o...
Seems like a good morning to re-up @randomwalker.bsky.social @sayash.bsky.social 's recent piece for us: knightcolumbia.org/blog/do-ai-r...
Do AI Risks Require Extraordinary Government Intervention?
knightcolumbia.org
AI as social technology - I gave the Astor Lecture at Oxford's Blavatnik School last week. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSE6...
AI as Social Technology: Astor Lecture by Professor Henry Farrell
YouTube video by Blavatnik School of Government
youtube.com
Three things said about AI and social science: it's a topic to study, a thing to critique, a tool to use. My new Daedalus essay argues these aren't three conversations; they're one. A 🧵 on "Field Theory: AI as Social Science Question, Object, and Tool." www.amacad.org/publication/...
Field Theory: AI as Social Science Question, Object & Tool
Uses of advanced artificial intelligence are changing how societies organize labor, govern, produce knowledge, and make meaning. In light of these developments, this essay argues that AI models, tools...
amacad.org
New from @randomwalker.bsky.social and @sayash.bsky.social: Responding to AI risks requires building broad resilience to harms through normal policymaking, rather than allowing the executive branch to exert extraordinary power over AI access and development. knightcolumbia.org/blog/do-ai-r...
Do AI Risks Require Extraordinary Government Intervention?
knightcolumbia.org
Does rampant individualism make public media virtually impossible? New from me in @knightcolumbia.org "Reconstructing Free Expression" series, with thanks to @katygb.bsky.social, @jameeljaffer.bsky.social. knightcolumbia.org/blog/is-indi...
Is Individualism the Problem? Toward a System of Free Expression that Challenges the Media Individualism Complex
knightcolumbia.org
Writing for Columbia's Knight First Amendment Institute, political scientist Henry Farrell and statistician Cosma Rohilla Shalizi have produced the *definitive* account of how AI psychosis has infected our political classes: knightcolumbia.org/content/ai-a... 24/
AI as Social Technology
knightcolumbia.org
Episode 2 of "Lawyering Without Law" is out now. @katygb.bsky.social and Madhav Khosla speak with @hls.harvard.edu's @lessig.bsky.social about institutional corruption, economic dependence, and what happens when courts, Congress, law firms, and corporations drift from their founding purpose.
Principle vs. Profit: How Institutions Lose Their Way - Lawyering Without Law
Bribery is the corruption we prosecute. But according to Lawrence Lessig, it's institutional corruption that poses the most danger to American democracy. Hosts Katy Glenn Bass and Madhav Khosla speak ...
buzzsprout.com
@alondra.bsky.social's work has been foundational to how I think about AI and democracy - her thread below ties a lot of things together, all worth reading! A key quote: "The Declaration of 1776 did not describe the country that existed. It named what was being demanded of the future."
Alondra Nelson@alondra.bsky.social · 3mo agoAI companies are writing their own constitutions. Meanwhile, a shared vocabulary for contesting algorithmic power has been traveling across red and blue states, from legislatures to civil society. New from me in @science.org: "A Civic Grammar for AI Rights" www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧵
this truly is the thing that makes the united states exceptional, and right wingers hate it so much they want to destroy it
Quantian@quantian.bsky.social · 3mo agoUS universities genuinely are like “welcome to Tennessee Agricultural College in Bumfuck Nowheresville. We invented the modern potato and our facilities include a particle accelerator, nuclear reactor, and TOP500 supercomputer. Tuition is $12,000 for instate students and we have 40,000 of them”
This fall @knightcolumbia.org will host a workshop on the role of the legal profession in resisting authoritarianism. Authors will present draft essays to be published as part of our "Lawyering Without Law" project. The participants are an incredible group: knightcolumbia.org/blog/knight-...
Knight Institute Lawyering Without Law Workshop and Essay Series to Feature Leading Scholars and Jurists
knightcolumbia.org
By sheer coincidence of timing, my and @cshalizi.bsky.social new @knightcolumbia.org piece on how bad ideas about AI helped fuel the DOGE madness knightcolumbia.org/content/ai-a...
AI as Social Technology
knightcolumbia.org
Scott Dworkin@dworkin.bsky.social · 3mo agoThe Trump regime actually let two guys with zero government experience use ChatGPT to cancel $100M in grants—including Holocaust education. A federal judge just humiliated them, called it unconstitutional, and reversed every single cut. Read how she did it: www.dworkinsubstack.com/p/a-federal-...
Excited about our newest @knightcolumbia.org essay from @himself.bsky.social and Cosma Shalizi, AI as Social Technology. Read Henry's 🧵 below for an overview - this piece offers a new way of thinking about AI's place in the longer Industrial Revolution, and how it will interact with bureaucracies.
Henry Farrell@himself.bsky.social · 3mo agoknightcolumbia.org/content/ai-a... Now up at @knightcolumbia.org - Cosma Shalizi and myself on "AI as Social Technology." It says that AI models are really a technology of social mediation that allow humans to connect with thoughts of other humans. Short-ish thread with major points follows.
This podcast series is part of @knightcolumbia.org's project on lawyering in an age of authoritarianism. If you're a lawyer, want to be a lawyer, or care about the rule of law, please listen to it and send it to all of your friends. It's really good. knightcolumbia.org/content/lawy...
Lawyering Without Law
knightcolumbia.org
This was a very interesting convo with @kimlanelaw.bsky.social on @knightcolumbia.org 's new podcast about the challenges of being a lawyer when law is being used for authoritarian ends, and what lawyers and law SCHOOLS should be doing about it. Recommended! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...
What Does Legal Authoritarianism Look Like?
Podcast Episode · Lawyering Without Law · May 1 · 39m
podcasts.apple.com
We've launched a new @knightcolumbia.org podcast about lawyering and authoritarianism, and how law can function both as a safeguard for democratic governance and as a tool of its erosion. First episode is out 👇 and more to come, exploring the legal profession's duty to the rule of law itself.
Knight First Amendment Institute@knightcolumbia.org · 3mo ago“We’re very far into autocratic capture of our legal system.” That’s how @kimlanelaw.bsky.social describes the current moment—and what she breaks down in the first episode of Lawyering Without Law. Hosted by @katygb.bsky.social and Madhav Khosla. Listen: buzzsprout.com/2609059/episodes/19105365
🚨NEWS: @knightcolumbia.org & @protectdemocracy.org just filed a lawsuit on behalf of @thecoalition.bsky.social challenging the Trump administration's policy targeting social media researchers and trust & safety workers for visa revocation and deportation. More: knightcolumbia.org/content/tech...
Technology Researchers Challenge Trump Policy Threatening Deportation for Work on Social Media Platforms and Online Harms
knightcolumbia.org
We @knightcolumbia.org have started to post short essays from some of the scholars and advocates participating in our "Reconstructing Free Expression" project. I'm going to post the essays in this thread, as we publish them. They're really good! knightcolumbia.org/research/rec...
Reconstructing Free Expression
knightcolumbia.org
For our Reconstructing Free Expression series, @akapczynski.bsky.social proposes a People’s College offering govt-funded 2-year degrees to all U.S. adults, with institutions required to agree to standards that would make #highered more democratically accountable. knightcolumbia.org/blog/the-peo...
The People’s College
knightcolumbia.org
In a new contribution to our Reconstructing Free Expression series, @rlevinsonwaldman.bsky.social writes about how courts and Congress can curtail the government’s use of social media to surveil people’s First Amendment-protected activities. knightcolumbia.org/blog/ending-...
Ending the Social Media Surveillance Loophole
knightcolumbia.org
Just published the first post for our Reconstructing Free Expression initiative, by @jamalgreene.bsky.social: Free Expression in the Shadow State, proposing the creation of alternative "shadow" govt institutions as mechanisms to express & fight for public values: knightcolumbia.org/blog/free-ex...
Free Expression in the Shadow State
knightcolumbia.org
This is the single most effective pro-vaccine piece I've ever read. Especially if you are also active on other, bigger social media platforms, share the gift link below. You might save a life. (I am already extremely pro-vaccine and I suspect most others on this platform are too.)
Kathleen Bachynski@bachynski.bsky.social · 6mo agoThis is a vivid, horribly relevant read. “She does not sleep well. And as you lift up her pajama top to check her rash one morning, you see that her breathing is labored, shadows pooling between her ribs when she sucks in air. You suffer an icy moment of realization: This is a medical crisis.”
My team at the Crowd Counting Consortium (@djpressman.bsky.social, Soha Hammam, & Chris Shay) has shared a big data update, covering all recorded US protests through Jan 2026. Some key takeaways 🧵:
Looking forward to working with a lot of smart, committed people on this. One of the things that keeps me motivated is the belief that the post-Trump period (and there will be one) may be a time when genuine rethinking/rebuilding of democratic institutions is possible. We should be ready for it.
Knight First Amendment Institute@knightcolumbia.org · 6mo agoNew Knight Institute Initiative to Focus on "Reconstructing Free Expression" After Trump. @jameeljaffer.bsky.social: "This initiative is meant to encourage creative and ambitious thinking about how to build a system of free expression that serves democracy better." knightcolumbia.org/content/new-...
The arrests of Lemon and Fort are intended to deter journalists from doing work we need them to do, and that the First Amendment was meant to protect. DOJ should drop these prosecutions or the courts should throw them out. knightcolumbia.org/content/knig...
Knight Institute Condemns Arrest of Journalists Reporting on Minneapolis Protests
knightcolumbia.org
No Kings is hosting what is shaping up to be the largest ICE Watch training in history tonight. Join here: www.mobilize.us/nokings/even...
Eyes on ICE: Document and Record · No Kings
On Saturday, federal agents horrifically shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse who cared for veterans, in the Eat Street neighborhood of south Minneapolis after brutally beating him in...
mobilize.us
Clara Jeffery@clarajeffery.bsky.social · 6mo agoThe people in Minneapolis trained for this. Find a training near you.
