Robyn Caplan

the actual story of what happened at the National Endowment for the Humanities last year is even more infuriating than we thought

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."

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...

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...

Oh wow, yikes, but Karla Hamolka (obviously predated me by many many years). #infamous

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.

Same!

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

JD Vance should have been sold by his mother for drugs, NYT columnist says New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie suggested Vice President JD Vance's mother was reasonable when attempting to sell him for drugs during his childhood.

this is very funny www.foxnews.com/media/jd-van...

lol our instincts overlapped. Love this.

“I do not think that 50 year old men should be having sex with 16 year old girls. But “

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.

Yeah I just can't get into the flow of it for some reason.

This is correct.

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...

This is a horizontal poster for the Gender & Tech Online Talk series in a combination of white, dark blue and teal. The topic is "Dis/Misinformation and Political Extremism,” the speakers are Rosana Pinheiro-Machado (University College Dublin) and Robyn Caplan (Duke University), and the moderation will be done by Jess Reia. Date and time: January 27, 11am EST.

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

After a fairly light year of review requests, I have somehow received about 8 of them in the last month (in some cases, multiple requests for the same journal). What is happening here...

That feels like asking for too much somehow

I can’t tell if I need a good cry, a stiff drink, an entire day at a spa, or like a week-long phone/computer detox.

Even UNICEF is like "yo, Australia, this social media ban for kids is a terrible fucking idea."

www.unicef.org/press-releas...

I may be getting older, but at least I get to (quietly, just to myself) say "Enhance. Enhance!" as I repeatedly zoom in to grade my students' assignments.

I showed my feed to my friend who worked at YouTube and he seemed to think mine was a special case and that most weren’t like that. But that is obviously wrong…

What is even the deal? It’s like they took critiques that their recommendations were too good at keeping people watching as a challenge to make it as bad as possible.

YouTube algorithm is now basically "you know that video we recommended to you 100 times that you didn't want to watch? Want to watch it now? Or how about this video that was uploaded *5 years ago.*"

Anyone interested in platform & AI governance check out the third annual PlatGov conference Mon/Tue - all online, free & truly global 🌍🌎🌏⌨️💽🤓

Here’s the program:

platgov.net/assets/site/...