Today I randomly won a $500 gift card for being a WUNC sustaining member. I've never won anything before and I definitely thought this might be a scam but it was not.
Robyn Caplan
@robyncaplan.bsky.social
Assistant professor at Duke University. Tech policy, platform governance, mom. I make bad jokes sometimes.
A question for my lawyer friends: When a law review publishes a "note," what does this mean? Who wrote it? How does it get cited? Example here: harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-13...
Section 230 as First Amendment Rule - Harvard Law Review
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 has been lauded as “the most important law protecting internet speech” and called “perhaps the...
harvardlawreview.org
This post is going to make me sound high (I'm not), but if the "computer" was once just a metaphor for the mind, and then sometimes hardened into an ontological claim, are we now just seeing the reverse? i.e. the "mind" as a metaphor for AI that's being taken too literally?
Flummoxed as to why our #AoIR2026 round table proposal on age verification legislation was rejected even though all of our reviews strongly recommended acceptance. Anyone else in this boat?
Made it through third-year review, so I'll be on my junior sabbatical next fall. Can folks recommend writing workshops/retreats they have enjoyed? I've applied to a few, but I'm looking for more.
In a very strange twist, TMZ (at least on TikTok) is now a news channel.
I don’t care what you think about the companies themselves, but that K.G.M. vs Meta decision is a bad one and it will have very bad consequences regardless of appeals.
My kid just asked me what the “you” and “tube” meant (respectively) in “YouTube.” I have literally prepared my whole life for this moment.
SOS: Desperately need a photo of someone with a conference lanyard for a talk I'm giving (I am not someone who keeps lanyards, and I am deeply regretting that in this moment).
Why do people go on threads? Every time I click on a post on my insta feed out of morbid curiosity, it seems to be entirely populated by rage bots or people acting like rage bots (often in response to those rage bots).
Happy “am I getting sick or is it allergies” season to all who celebrate.
The amount of times I have navigated away from the #AOIR2026 CFP only to have to re-google it to look at the guidelines today has been bananas. Why is this the one tab in my life I insist on closing?
The best part of paper writing is listening to a podcast while you do the works cited.
the actual story of what happened at the National Endowment for the Humanities last year is even more infuriating than we thought
Techdirt@techdirt.com · 6mo agoDOGE Bro’s Grant Review Process Was Literally Just Asking ChatGPT ‘Is This DEI?’ Federal grants that had been approved after a full application and review process were terminated by some random inexperienced DOGE bros based on whether ChatGPT could explain—in under 120 characters—that they were…
It does not matter how many times I have done this in my career, I will *always* feel like a weirdo sending out interview requests.
Is there anything more overwhelming than reaching out to research participants you interviewed several years prior
Wild to be told that nothing can be done about the pedophilic cabal running our institutions because it's "too big to fail/jail."
Spoke about this in my identity/verification class today: What does it mean that, instead of creating an internet where we want children to be, that we are just creating a child-free internet? techcrunch.com/2026/02/17/s...
These are the countries moving to ban social media for children | TechCrunch
Australia was the first country to issue a ban in late 2025, aiming to reduce the pressures and risks that young users may face on social media, including cyberbullying, social media addiction, and ex...
techcrunch.com
Oh wow, yikes, but Karla Hamolka (obviously predated me by many many years). #infamous
William Adler@williamadler78.bsky.social · 6mo agoWho's the most famous alum of your high school? I'll go first: David Draiman of Disturbed
How are there so many podcasts now but also still somehow not enough podcasts?
My students this year are so aware of their lack of privacy that almost none of them have social media accounts, none of them are out protesting, and they all seem hypervigilant in class. Their concerns aren't unfounded, but damn, this is the most scared I have been about the future in a long time.
We are mourning the loss of a brilliant scholar and a wonderful partner and friend. Please give what you can to help Fobazi’s wife, @elenamaris.bsky.social with medical and other bills following Fobazi’s passing. Please share the go fund me link with your community as well: gofund.me/4092df86f
Donate to Honoring the life of Fobazi Ettarh: Funeral & other costs, organized by Ysabel Gerrard
NEW UPDATE Dear readers, This isn’t the update I was … Ysabel Gerrard needs your support for Honoring the life of Fobazi Ettarh: Funeral & other costs
gofund.me
Fobazi M. Ettarh@fobettarh.bsky.social · 6mo ago
“I do not think that 50 year old men should be having sex with 16 year old girls. But “
Claire E. Aubin@ceaubin.com · 6mo agoThis level of apologia (from Megan McArdle in a podcast with Josh Barro and Ross Douthat) is fucking appalling. Idk what else there is to say.
Truly embarrassing how many times I’ve listened to the Grammy version of Yukon at this point. And it’s only on YouTube so I am just driving around blasting YouTube on my phone.
I'm really mourning the loss of a place on the internet where I can both say earnest things and incredibly stupid things.
Quinoa was to the 2010s what sundried tomatoes were to the 1990s.
People are going to have to drag the democrats to the right place on immigration and ICE just like they had to drag them to the right place on opposing the Iraq war and impeaching Trump. It’s fucking exhausting to have a party that refuses to do the right thing right away,
I feel like Gawker was taken down by Thiel because it was the only site that would have properly exposed the insanity of everything, and with the wry wit to make traditional media too intimidated (in the way they could) to not cover it. But perhaps this is my version of romanticizing of the past...
Join us for the 7th event in our Gender & Tech Online Talk Series "Dis/Misinformation & Political Extremism” on Jan 27 at 11am EST, with the amazing @pinheiromachado.bsky.social + @robyncaplan.bsky.social. Free & open to all: dtdlab.virginia.edu/event/gender.... See you there @yasmincurzi.com
