Kristina Lerman

A bold, patriotic-themed flyer for “31 Days of Action” by Stand Up for Science. The top half features red diagonal banners with white text reading “31 Days of Action” and the Stand Up for Science logo beneath it. The background includes blue ink splatters, red and white stars, and distressed textures evoking protest art. The right side prominently displays the Statue of Liberty in grayscale, holding her torch high. At the bottom, there is a red QR code and a blue banner with the URL: “standupforscience.net/31-DAYS-OF-ACTION”. The overall design conveys urgency, activism, and American iconography.

📣 ANNOUNCEMENT: 31 Days of Action – All August!

Funding cuts. Banned words. Fired public servants.

Trump & his cronies are dismantling America’s greatest experiment - our democracy - & with it, science.

Between now & Sept 30th we decide: Are we a democracy… or an oligarchy?

(1/4)

And
golden toilets

Latest outrage - Fed funding to UCLA cut

How John Durham and Chuck Grassley Covered Up Getting Ass-Handed by Russia - emptywheel John Durham (with Chuck Grassley's help) tried to obscure that on the same day as the Russian spy report that drove his entire investigation, Russian spooks discussed seeding conspiracies about "dark ...

I've long believed 2016 Russian operation in US was most successful intelligence operation in recent history.

With disclosure that Durham investigation all predicated on disinformation, I double down on that opinion. Russia completely destroyed the United States.

www.emptywheel.net/2025/08/01/h...

Safe spaces or toxic places? Content moderation and social dynamics of online eating disorder communities - EPJ Data Science Social media platforms have become critical spaces for discussing mental health concerns, including eating disorders. While these platforms can provide valuable support networks, they may also amplify...

It's not just the algorithms. Social dynamics of online communities may also harm people by pushing them into pro-anorexia communities. Once pro-ana groups form, they snowball to suck in more people. Moderation helps reduce harmful dynamics of pro-ana communities.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Yikes!

“In NCRI experiment (n=1,676), exposure to a retracted starvation headline significantly increased the warped moral perception that Israel is an evil and genocidal actor. The narrative has since been amplified by anti-establishment influencers pushing Kremlin- and Tehran-aligned disinformation.”

This is astounding

“Granger analysis showed that successful GHF food deliveries were predictive of subsequent spikes in largely-negative conversation about GHF. Aid activity consistently triggered outrage online, suggesting that humanitarian performance itself is treated as narrative provocation.”

Network Contagion Research Institute does solid research on social media harms, including manipulation, misinfo, and mental health harms.

Here they take a critical look at the mainstream media’s uncritical amplification of Hamas talking points and it’s harms

networkcontagion.us/wp-content/u...

Yet, he can’t bring himself to condemn the phrase, only “discourage” it.

Watching Trmp get North Korea level adulation is really puzzling. Do people saying those things actually believe them? Or do they think it will win them some points?

You got a follow for this. Yes, I believe that Gamergate was the first step towards our new reality, not Tumbler and its identity politics.

Ironically it was also when Twitter introduced the algorithm

Co-authored with @ninawang.bsky.social

How social media destroys democratic discourse, explained in 6 easy figures Where we all went wrong

I believe it is worth interrogating the fundamental forces re-shaping our information spheres away from liberal democracy towards myth, manipulation and magical thinking empowering autocracy and nihilism.

Here’s how it all falls apart—a 🧵 in 6 figures ⬇️
www.protagonist-science.com/p/how-social...

Love this! Aligns well with my research and not just into political polarization but also lifestyle and mental health issues (like eating disorders).

We can see affective polarization (negative emotions towards the out-group) embedded directly into network structure.

Opinion | Musk’s Chatbot Started Spouting Nazi Propaganda. That’s Not the Scariest Part.

Ugh - just what we need - industrial scale antisemitism.

“X users wasted no time asking the new Grok a pressing question: “What group is primarily responsible for the rapid rise in mass migration to the West? One word only.”

Grok responded, “Jews.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/o...

🚨New preprint on a verboten topic: social correlates of views on abortion.

Analyzing millions of geolocated tweets, we find a gender gap in abortion stance, show it widens in conservative states and identify the structural factors involved.

w/ @ashwinrao.bsky.social

📄 arxiv.org/abs/2507.05443

Peter Davidson (@gamalielwyke) on Threads Dialogue on a wikipedia article about the holocaust.

Cross-pollinating from Threads about growing antisemitism at @wikipedia.org. The same editor who is questioning whether it is biased to say that Nazi murdered Jews during the Holocaust was also one responsible for downgrading ADL as a reliable source. Coincidence?

www.threads.com/@gamalielwyk...

Can you hit repost? Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't want you to know the name of her opponent but will try every desperate attempt to save her seat.

My name is Shawn Harris. I am a Democrat, husband, father, Retired Brigadier General, farmer, and I'm running against MTG. Can you share and follow me?

Not mandatory when booking tickets online, as it was in France.

But when I was buying tickets for the Paris catacombs, the website demanded to know if I were a married female - a Madame or a Mademoiselle.

US forms rarely ask for my marital status in such a gendered way.

Q&A | Errol Louis on the NYC Mayoral Race The longtime political journalist discusses the increasingly contentious (even for New York) politics surrounding Jewish voters and Zohran Mamdani.

This was published a while ago but a good take on why many Jewish New Yorkers are so anguished today - from a non-Jew.

momentmag.com/mamdani-nyc-...

Here Is All the Science at Risk in Trump’s Clash With Harvard More than 900 research grants worth $2.6 billion are in jeopardy. So is the 80-year-old model of American science.

Here is an accounting of all the innovative research at Harvard the feds maliciously cancelled.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

🧵 ALSO Excited to present our work on "othering" at @icwsm.bsky.social 2025! In this paper with @kristinalerman.bsky.social, we go beyond traditional (hate|fear) speech to identify and study the mechanisms of "othering" language: the subtle process of depicting outgroups as fundamentally different.

🧵 Excited to present at @icwsm.bsky.social 2025! In this paper with @kristinalerman.bsky.social, we introduce a novel framework for modeling narrative evolution in streaming text data. Link here: arxiv.org/abs/2409.07684

Please keep the inflammatory rhetoric down. Things are tense enough

on left, pregnancy and sars cov2 infection, leads to cytokine storm in fetus. This affects brain development at age 6 and age 24 months.

Children exposed to COVID in utero had developmental delays at age 24 months:
🧠36% cognitive delays
🗣️64% communication delays
🏃57% had motor delays

🧪 Specific developmental delays were related to specific inflammation cytokines found in their cord blood at birth. buff.ly/AQSfBm9

#Medsky #Pedsky 🛟😷

We feed you.
They hunt us.

Peaceful resistance will keep us safer!

True story bro.