Sarah Gilbert

Visa Chaos: A Graphic Narrative (opinion) A graphic narrative written and drawn by Rivi Handler-Spitz.

My friend Rivi drew a remarkable graphic narrative for Inside Higher Ed, in which she uses her illustrations to let six Chinese graduate students in the U.S. tell their stories of visa chaos, political fears, and uncertain futures.

www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

Tackling (misleading) incivility online: a user-centric evaluation of different comment moderation strategies Uncivil online comments, e.g., in the form of insults or misinformation, come with severe consequences for platforms, users, and democratic processes – making effective moderation essential. Howeve...

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I’m thrilled (and a little proud 🤗) to share my first single-authored publication!
It’s now out open access in Information, Communication & Society:
🔗 doi.org/10.1080/1369...

i love ta-nehisi coates so much

Not the point of this piece exactly but a great example of how chatbot validation could increase polarization

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/w...

I was introduced to Borsook's work in grad school and still cite it regularly as it remains relevant!

The story is not what Kimmel said but what others won’t say now for fear of state retribution. Authoritarian countries thrive on self censorship.

I've been saying this for yearsf: LLM-GENERATED SAMPLES ARE JUST FALSIFIED DATA. It's similar to just lying about what people said, or taking your own best guesses.

HEY FELLOW SOCIAL SCIENTISTS: STOP TRYING TO FIND WAYS TO AVOID ACTUALLY TALKING TO THE PEOPLE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE STUDYING

The White Civility Council As the nation reckons with the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, there has been a notable trend from mainstream pundits and press outlets. They have tended to downplay or outright i...

All right, I wrote about it:

Editor's Note: An earlier version of this article detailed how an internal law enforcement bulletin said that ammunition recovered following the Charlie Kirk shooting was engraved with expressions of "transgender and anti-fascist ideology." Justice Department officials later urged caution about the bulletin by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, saying it may not accurately reflect the messages on the ammunition, and the article was updated Thursday to reflect that. This editor's note was appended on Friday, Sept. 12, after Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said the engravings included one that said "Hey fascist!" along with other messages and symbols. He gave no indication that the ammunition included any transgender references.

hi, cis folks!

the WSJ endangered trans lives with false reporting yesterday. it’s still accepted as truth by many, regardless of it being false. the article’s still up with a little note. it needs full retraction.

it's not even a phone call—it's email. you can do this.

contact info below.🧵⬇️

Wikipedia editors trying to fend off the onslaught of AI crap have crowdsourced some telltale signs of LLM-generated writing; it might be handy for editors and proofreaders generally. Thanks to @ellenrykers.com for pointing me to it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

Assistant Professor – Global History of Technology - Department of History University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!

NEW: Tenure-track position in History at UC Berkeley in the GLOBAL HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY.

We are casting a wide net here: *all* periods, places, and fields are under consideration.

I'm on the search committee, so do let me know if you have questions.

I'd react to this but I'm too busy writing personalized review requests

If you're following this story in the NYT by @kashhill.bsky.social, I recommend @schancellor.bsky.social's post that breaks down why AI is bad at therapy. Pretty much everything she she warns about shows up in this story, which is heartbreaking

notatechdemo.substack.com/p/why-ai-can...

A Teen Was Suicidal. ChatGPT Was the Friend He Confided In.

What is it going to take to get companies to care about this and do something? It's been a tough day reading this great report by @kashhill.bsky.social on the risks of chatbots.

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/t...

The full-day, hybrid workshop is "Matters: Ethical Challenges in Research with Online Communities" led by Matthew Zent plus @schancellor.bsky.social, @cfiesler.bsky.social, @sarahagilbert.bsky.social, @estellesmithphd.bsky.social and more.
sites.google.com/umn.edu/cont...

The Sydney Sweeney Jeans Ad "Backlash" Is Mostly Fake How a handful of TikTok comments became a national controversy about eugenics, Democrats, and denim.

Really good article/explainer from @parkermolloy.com www.readtpa.com/p/the-sydney...

Why (and how) academics should blog their papers Encouragement and tips for writing accessible, public-facing versions of your research papers

✨ MAKE YOUR RESEARCH FINDINGS ACCESSIBLE ✨

I promise you don't have to make TikToks. Maybe a Bluesky thread or a LinkedIn post?

Or my favorite option... blog your papers!

cfiesler.medium.com/why-and-how-...

Lay audiences unable to access scientific literature want to learn from you. 🥰

My intro to digital history class at GMU this Fall is themed around the Salem Witchcraft Trials. It was ideally not going to be an immersive learning experience

New OA pub day! Given the dwindling of local newspapers, folks are turning to social media. Platforms are discursively constructing local community groups as a new kind of hub. But local volunteer mods are the ones who are charged to realize these visions. journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10....

I hadn't seen this one! Thank you for sharing—I'm looking forward to reading it!

It's well known that big tech contracts out its human (and AI) moderation. In this new paper @lucas-wright.bsky.social describes a pivot to moderation infrastructure, giving these companies a lot of power over trust & safety papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Very excited to see this report I contributed to on ethical use of pervasive data for research is out! The report includes actions stakeholders can take to continue
progress towards trusted ethics and privacy practices in research. Thanks @annalenhart.bsky.social for your leadership!

We Banned Holocaust Deniers From Our History Subreddit. Here’s Why Facebook Should Do the Same. They aren’t arguing an actual side. They’re not “just asking questions” out of curiosity or ignorance. Don’t give them the chance.

Apropos of nothing, your regular reminder that it is not in fact necessary to platform bigots.

slate.com/technology/2...

Kudos to @charlottewillner.bsky.social for her opening speech at #trustcon calling out how the US government is making the role of trust & safety more dangerous... And how many people couldn't even come to the event because it's not safe to travel to the US.

I’ll be here today to present our cancelled grant where we were working with volunteer moderators of @AskHistorians and other communities to develop a tool that would help support their work. We mentioned misinformation as a challenge mods grapple with and suspect that’s why it was cancelled.

Are you or were you participating in a medical study that has been affected by federal funding cuts?

Our reporters want to hear from you. You can share your experience by:
✉️ Emailing healthfunding@propublica.org
☎️ Calling 301-388-5405
📱 Sending a message on Signal to 917-512-0201

Computer-vision research powers surveillance technology - Nature An analysis of research papers and citing patents indicates the extensive ties between computer-vision research and surveillance.

New paper hot off the press www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We analysed over 40,000 computer vision papers from CVPR (the longest standing CV conf) & associated patents tracing pathways from research to application. We found that 90% of papers & 86% of downstream patents power surveillance

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