I will be at TrustCon next week in SF! Very excited to connect and meet up with old and new Trust & Safety friendos! :D

In anticipation of Trump's press conference on alleged election interference tomorrow, we're doing an early release of our "Rigged Election" Bingo game. Which worn out tropes will he and his operatives roll out (again) tomorrow? Create your own card to play along. bingo.cip.uw.edu/s/92d3739d-2...

"Rigged Election" Bingo

Spot the tropes before they spread — can you get BINGO?

bingo.cip.uw.edu

Excited to be organizing a #CSCW2026 workshop with many wonderful people on ⭐ Frontline communities, Environmental and Climate Justice, and CSCW research ⭐! Submit via tinyurl.com/CSCW-EJ-Submit by July 31 AoE. 🌱👥Learn more: ecjcscw2026workshop.netlify.app

Going to my first FAccT this week -- really excited to meet folks there, experience this new to me community, and enjoy Montréal! I am presenting a paper from my internship last summer about red teaming with community leaders, with faith communities as an important case study! Please come say hi!

Kate gives a bit of a peek into ongoing work from our large anti-immigrant visual propaganda study and connects it to broader propagandist and attention dynamics online! I am indeed still writing the main paper (it's a big and hard one!) but this may be useful for folks thinking about this space!

Kate Starbird@katestarbird.bsky.social · 2mo ago

My team has been studying visual propaganda within online images and videos. This post by WA state GOP leader, Jim Walsh, illustrates a few of the tactics that we've been documenting: strategic ambiguity, implicit framing, and controversy baiting: open.substack.com/pub/katestar...

Writing about SB1070 in a paper about participatory propaganda as an AZ kid on an uncannily nice summer day in your Seattle apartment in 2026 hits different (not in a fun way).

I am at #CHI2026 presenting my paper on conducting mixed methods visual research with care in distressing contexts. This methods paper has been my heart and soul during my PhD! A version was rejected last year and this year I am honored it won a Best Paper award! doi.org/10.1145/3772... (1/n)

If you're interested in seeing how framing contests are taking shape after the ICE killing of another person in Minneapolis, here's a window into the conversation on X this morning. Link to interactive graph: faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/Spot... * I put this together quickly. Sorry for any errors

New research on Twitter (right before rebranding to X) shows right leaning accounts got outsized visibility from the algorithm & suggests this bias stemmed from different content production techniques (more sensational, outrage-bait) and from direct interaction w/ the new king of the platform: Musk.

Alexandros Efstratiou@alextheefstra.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Recently accepted at ICWSM: arxiv.org/abs/2512.06129 (w/ @kayladuskin.bsky.social, @katestarbird.bsky.social, and @emmaspiro.bsky.social) We look at how algorithmic feeds affect Twitter account visibility. More visible accounts: -Are agitators -Get attention from Elon Musk -Are not legacy verified

STS/Communications scholar Morgan Ames (whom these authors don't cite) has repeatedly demonstrated that OLPC was ineffective at best, and harmful at worst, including in an award-winning book published in 2019. The real question is why economists don't acknowledge work in other fields.

@gquaggiotto.bsky.social · 8mo ago

One Laptop Per Child, 10 years later: "we find no significant effects on academic performance but some evidence of negative effects on grade progression... computer access significantly improved students’ computer skills but not their cognitive skills" www.nber.org/papers/w34495

UW CIP postdoc @mertcanbayar.bsky.social explains how a high-profile scientist's statements about the 3l/ATLAS comet harnessed uncertainty and attention dynamics, and spawned widespread speculation about an alien visitor, an "alien of the gaps" in human knowledge: www.cip.uw.edu/2025/12/03/3...

Alien of the gaps: How 3I/ATLAS was turned into a spaceship online

When we reach the frontier of current knowledge, we’re tempted to insert a higher power into the space where answers aren’t yet satisfying for all.

cip.uw.edu

A note for cognitive researchers interested in the spread of misinfo and disinfo. A lot of our research uses text-based presentation of information. Most of what people use on social media is video-based. I suspect more people watch news than read papers. Maybe we should consider this?

Conrad Hackett@conradhackett.bsky.social · 8mo ago

UPDATE: Americans who use YouTube 84% Facebook 71% Instagram 50% TikTok 37% WhatsApp 32% Reddit 26% Snapchat 25% X (Twitter) 21% Threads 8% Bluesky 4% Truth Social 3% Full Pew Research Center report: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/11/20/americans-social-media-use-2025/

Academia is really just juggling lots of things and being like "Wow I'm so good at juggling!" and ignoring the fact that still means you are a clown.

Bullshit as U.S. government policy. This is the punchline from my Feb 2025 lecture. If you’re interested in understanding more about how we got here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjiG... It ends with a call to action to rage against the bullshit machine.

A Spotlight on Rumors

YouTube video by UW (University of Washington)

youtube.com

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 9mo ago

New in PN: The triumph of bullshit "We’re a long way from 'covfefe' and tumescent hurricanes Sharpied on a weather map. This is an era of lies as policy, where government priorities are based on right-wing conspiracy theories and fear-mongering."

It was such an honor to co-lead this paper w/ @priyadhawka.bsky.social. We do a fun mix of our research here -- looking at the visual participatory nature of data visualizations and the non-neutral underpinnings and infrastructures of the (open) data and actors behind them. (thread)

Kate Starbird@katestarbird.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Really excited to share this new paper on "Data Visualizations as Propaganda", co-led by PhD students Priya Dhawka and Nina Lutz, which just won a Best Paper award at the CSCW conference: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/... [Short thread]

For Seattle folks… I’m giving a talk tonight at Obec Brewery (6:30) about science funding, the history of human computer interaction, and the future of AI. I’m off the clock, so I may get a little spicier than usual. If you’re around, please come!

Hi Seattle! Come see my talk on the history of human-computer interaction. I'll explain U.S. gov funding of science has led to many of the innovations that power our economy & shape our lives — and call out the short-sightedness & hypocrisy of efforts to defund science in this field & so many others

Stand Up for Science Washington@sufswa.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Seattle! We're joining the Summer of Science with our first teach-in. Join us at Obec brewing and meet Dr. @katestarbird.bsky.social 1/

Happy refresh email for CSCW 2026 results for all who celebrate.

Does your work explore mis/disinformation, scams, hate speech, or other forms of harmful information online? We are convening a CSCW workshop to bring together a global community focused on information disorder. We welcome short submissions, due August 8th. cscw2025infodisorder.netlify.app

Interesting new study from researchers at the UW Center for an Informed Public finds that AI-generated persuasive messaging (AI-Pasta) is more effective in key ways (e.g. creating a false sense of consensus) and harder to detect than traditional CopyPasta.

Saloni Dash@dashsaloni.bsky.social · last yr.

Excited to announce that my paper "The persuasive potential of AI-paraphrased information at scale" with my wonderful collaborators @yiweixu.bsky.social, @maddyjalbert.bsky.social, and @emmaspiro.bsky.social has been published at PNAS Nexus! Link: academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

Join us online or in person in Bergen, Norway!

Kate Starbird@katestarbird.bsky.social · last yr.

My team is organizing a workshop on information disorder at the CSCW conference (Oct 18, Bergen, Norway). We aim to convene scholars committed to understanding mis & disinfo, scams, online hate, etc. Applicants should submit 2-6 page position papers by Aug 1: cscw2025infodisorder.netlify.app

Really excited to draw attention to this dissertation by Melinda McClure Haughey (@melm.cc‬). Melinda's research explored collaborative infrastructure for supporting the "sensemaking" work of journalists working on high-stakes, fast-paced & often data-driven beats. www.melm.cc/research/dis...

We’ve seen this repeatedly. QAnon. COVID denial. Election lies. War crimes denial. In each case, the problem wasn’t just what people believed, it was how those beliefs hardened into identity and made correction impossible.

Does your work explore mis/disinformation, scams, hate speech, or other forms of harmful information online? We are convening a CSCW workshop to bring together a global community focused on information disorder. We welcome 2-6 page submissions, due August 1. cscw2025infodisorder.netlify.app

Trying to write about anti-immigrant visual propaganda nothing to see here.

“The net effect of these technological forms has been to nudge us into seeing one another as the machines see us: fungible, expendable parcels of data open to classification and judgment.” Another fabulous blog post from @aidanwalker.bsky.social howtodothingswithmemes.substack.com/p/fossil-foo...

fossil footprints & phone phenomenology

how production colonized play

howtodothingswithmemes.substack.com

Trump operates almost uniformly in the epistemology of spectacle. Entertainment. Theatrics. Images of chaos in the streets of major U.S. cities is exactly what this administration wants. It reinforces the conflation of “urban” with “violence” like this is where lawlessness reigns.

The administration’s vision of science in America is that we do 75% less of it. That means more death, less progress, more ignorance, fewer experts, fewer educated people, all to make billionaires wealthier.

It’s Fustilarian Friday again. This week: NSF all but abolished in the President’s proposed budget.

Dan Garisto@dangaristo.bsky.social · last yr.

Presidential budget is out. Here's NSF. Biggest cut, by amount, is $1 billion, or 66.8%, from MPS (Physics & Math directorate). nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00-NSF...

The goal is plainly and literally to cut the number of people involved in basic science in the US by 70%

Dan Garisto@dangaristo.bsky.social · last yr.

From over 300k to less than 100k. A picture of smaller, reduced science.