🧵@cip.uw.edu researcher @zarine.net recently co-authored a @brennancenter.org expert brief with Brennan's Kate Lurie exploring how the threat of foreign influence on U.S. elections remains as federal defenses recede. [1/3] www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

Threat of Foreign Influence on U.S. Elections Remain as Federal Defenses Recede

As China, Iran, and Russia leverage AI tools and the Trump administration buys in to disinformation, voters and election officials must be more vigilant than ever.

brennancenter.org

Foreign actors are testing new influence tactics just as the federal infrastructure built post 2016 to counter election interference has been dismantled. Meanwhile, Trump officials have shown willingness to exploit unsubstantiated foreign interference claims to tighten control over election admin.

Brennan Center@brennancenter.org · last mo.

The Trump administration has degraded the federal infrastructure for countering foreign election threats, leaving states largely on their own. bit.ly/4fgaS9L

Prediction markets risk "confusing people into thinking that, 'Okay, these markets have the pulse on public sentiment about the election and who's going to win,' when that's not necessarily the case," @cip.uw.edu researcher @zarine.net told @npr.org in an interview. www.npr.org/2026/06/07/n...

Kalshi and Polymarket crack down on paid influencers claiming election fraud

Influencers are using prediction market odds to sow doubt in vote counting, in some cases in posts paid for by the companies themselves.

npr.org

Trump's Justice Department is very online. And it loves conspiracy theories.

A Department of Justice for an Age of Conspiracy Theories

The DOJ is now very much an active participant in the online discourse that promotes and perpetuates ideas that are barely connected to reality.

theatlantic.com

Under Trump, climate & weather data collection has declined. This year, the WH proposed a modest budget increase for the National Weather Service, but a 40% cut to NOAA. The cuts could make the weather forecasts less reliable. Hurricane season coming soon. 🧪 www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Trump cuts to weather data could make forecasts less reliable, warn experts

Use of AI is a valuable tool for weather prediction but only when it’s trained with ample data, experts say

theguardian.com

new working paper w/ @mako.cc: we argue that the focus on combating problematic information flowing through media systems has not kept pace with a more consequential threat: efforts to capture or destroy the very institutions we rely on to steward shared knowledge. osf.io/preprints/so...

Today, the Archive published a Disappearing Data Chronology--a timeline tracking changes in access to federal information under Trump, including major data losses and restorations, legal challenges to information takedowns, and threats to archival collections. nsarchive.gwu.edu/special-exhi...

A Disappearing Data Chronology

About the ExhibitThe Disappearing Data Chronology documents fundamental changes to the federal information landscape under the Trump administration, including major data losses and restorations, legal...

nsarchive.gwu.edu

In the last month ICE has bought warehouses in: - Hagerstown, MD: $102 million - Surprise, AZ: $70 million - Hamburg, PA: $87 million - Tremont, PA: $120 million - San Antonio, TX: $82 million - El Paso, TX: $123 million - Social Circle, GA: price unknown This is unprecedented.

The demise of the CIA World Factbook is “part of a broad war on information being waged by the Trump administration,” @dgraham.bsky.social argues in The Atlantic Daily.

The Trump Administration’s War on Data

A series of recent steps have erased the shared facts that help uphold democracy.

bit.ly

Even when there’s no accountability, the record matters. Credit to the Wikipedia editors maintaining this page.

Deaths, detentions and deportations of American citizens in the second Trump administration - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Federal law enforcement agents shot and killed a man in Minneapolis on Jan. 24 according to local police officials. DHS told Fox News that the man was “armed with a gun”. A video of the shooting appears to show that a gun was taken from the man before the first shot was fired. x.com/BillMelugin_...

Love this short opinion piece on “mechanical bypass” in analogy to “spiritual bypass”.

The “machinal bypass” and how we’re using AI to avoid ourselves | PNAS

The “machinal bypass” and how we’re using AI to avoid ourselves

pnas.org

A college student complaining about a grade on a paper is not national news. Not even close. The details have minimal import outside the class itself. Well-funded political activists targeting profs and TAs—in this case because they're trans—with the help of elected state officials? National issue.

The Eric Schickler essay in Larry Bartel's symposium on "What Trump Has Taught Us About Political Science" is one of the most insightful pieces I've read in 2025. US institutions turned out to be weak, and we have to rethink conventional wisdom. open access: academic.oup.com/psq/advance-...

i've always been fascinated by cultural property theft/antiquities trafficking (NOT partaking in it 🙃) dream job in another life, tbh

MOLA@museumofloot.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Denver Post confirms what we’ve been hearing: nearly all federal HSI agents with expertise on cultural property crimes have been reassigned to immigration duties in recent months. Major loss of law enforcement capabilities in the world’s largest art market. www.denverpost.com/2025/11/06/u...

Friend and colleague Ryan McGrady has an excellent piece in Tech Policy Press on Grokipedia. Rather than excoriating the new project for Elon worship (true, but hardly interesting), he looks into how Grokipedia redefines sources for encyclopedic knowledge: www.techpolicy.press/with-grokipe...

With Grokipedia, Top-Down Control of Knowledge Is New Again | TechPolicy.Press

Ryan McGrady asks, who is Grokipedia for, other than its owner?

techpolicy.press

Late to this, but if you aren't willing to stand up for trans people that puts you on the side of the villains. There is no excuse and no "strategy" that justifies it. Either stand with people under attack from the state or get out of the way so someone with a working moral compass can step up.

Corinne Green@ket.bsky.social · 9mo ago

gavin newsom says he wants to pass legislation banning trans people from playing sports in california

Slate: Scholars, including @cip.uw.edu graduate research assistant and @hcde.uw.edu PhD candidate @zarine.net, say "recent attacks on Wikipedia differ from earlier critiques" of the website, which had focused on Wikipedia's content. Read more: slate.com/technology/2...

A Wikipedia Conference Took a Dark Turn. Unfortunately, It’s Not a Total Surprise.

An armed man at a gathering of the website’s volunteers is just the latest reminder: Editing the internet’s encyclopedia has never been riskier.

slate.com

Interested in doing a Ph.D studying online communities, governance, digital open infrastructure, etc.? Several faculty at @communitydata.science are recruiting students for next year! Join our Prospective Student Q&A on September 26: blog.communitydata.science/prospective-...

Prospective PhD Student Q&A – September 26th

Thinking about applying to graduate school? Wonder what it’s like to pursue a PhD or research-based master’s degree? Interested in understanding relationships between technology and society? …

blog.communitydata.science

Nudging very much appeals to people who want a politics without politics.

Levi Stahl@levistahl.bsky.social · last yr.

The damage from the Nudge era is brutal. It made politicians believe that they could secure the political outcomes they wanted w/o having to be political, w/o having to take chances on & make cases for their positions. Add a Clintonesque Third Way hangover & you get a bad, ineffective worldview.

moonflower... santana cover 🌸

Drawing on some of my work from the past year at the Center for an Informed Public, I published a piece in Lawfare with my colleague Stephen Prochaska.

Lawfare@lawfaremedia.org · last yr.

@ashlynba.bsky.social and Stephen Prochaska explore the ways the MAGA movement uses courts and litigation to propel fringe rumors about election fraud into mainstream consciousness. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/how-...

a new short research brief with @mako.cc and @aaronshaw.bsky.social synthesizes some of the work I presented at @communitydata.science Science of Community Dialogues back in April! zenodo.org/records/1560...

For the June issue of @thenation.com, I wrote about the Harper’s letter 5 years later, and how under a quarter of its signatories have spoken out about Mahmoud Khalil and other campus activists imprisoned for speech.

They All Signed the “Harper’s” Letter. Where Are They Now?

Many of those who were loudest in denouncing cancel culture then are now curiously silent in the face of Donald Trump’s assaults on free speech.

thenation.com

7/ And the study has harmed CMV, an important public sphere for people to engage in debate, learn new things, have their assumptions challenged, and maybe even their minds changed. Are people going to trust that they aren’t engaging with bots? And if they don’t, can the community serve its mission?

Ed Martin's latest target: Wikipedia. The interim U.S. attorney and pro-Trump bulldog has sent a letter seeming to threaten the Wikimedia Foundation's tax-exempt status over allegations that it is "spreading propaganda." Our story: www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

Ed Martin sent a letter to the Wikimedia Foundation accusing it of spreading propaganda

washingtonpost.com

Seattle! Playing the NEW Hidden Hall in Fremont this Sunday with my funk/r&b/latin group, Soleado 😌💃

🚨 My first solo-authored piece is out in Electoral Studies! 👽 I examine when and how conspiracy theories become participatory, increasing political mobilization. Using the United States and Turkey as cases of a most-different-systems design, I explore how conspiracy theories drive political action.

Partisan and non-partisan conspiracy theories’ diverging effects on political participation

What role do conspiracy theories play in mobilizing political action? Both historical and contemporary accounts have written on the role of conspiracy…

sciencedirect.com

So weird to see colleges promoting their USNWR grad school rankings today like grad students aren’t being disappeared by their government.