Gareth Tyson

In our recent PETS paper, we have been looking at whether Personally Identifiable Information (PII) removal services (e.g., DeleteMe, Optery, Incogni) are effective in protecting user privacy by removing users' private information from the data broker. [1/8] arxiv.org/pdf/2505.06989

I'll be at #ICWSM 2025 next week to present our paper about Bluesky Starter Packs.

For the occasion, I've created a Starter Pack with all the organizers, speakers, and authors of this year I could find on Bluesky!
Link: go.bsky.app/GDkQ3y7

Let me know if I missed anyone!

Dear world, I'm heading off to the Web Conference in Sydney this week. If you're around, please do ping me!

That's our paper, nice :) @asonur.bsky.social @harnen.bsky.social @bibo7086.bsky.social @garethtyson.bsky.social @ignactro.bsky.social @baronca.bsky.social

Bluesky Report – #112 Custom feed builder Graze raises 1M USD, and Deer is a new fork of the main Bluesky app.

Bluesky Report - this week's news:

- custom feed builder @graze.social raises 1M USD
- Deer Social is a fork of the official Bluesky app, giving people the option to use the app with various features turned off
- a paper on the large impact of Starter Packs

fediversereport.com/bluesky-repo...

The Blue Report The top links on Bluesky, updated hourly

Bluesky loves links! We don't downrank, and major publishers report that we're sending more link traffic than other sites.

Here's the top links shared on Bluesky, updated hourly.

theblue.report/week/

ACM IMC is running another Shadow TPC this year. If you're a student looking to learn about the peer review process, I strongly recommend: conferences.sigcomm.org/imc/2025/sha...

🔥 Are you working on next-gen or alternative social media platforms like #Bluesky or #Mastodon?

👇🏻 This @icwsm.bsky.social workshop is for you! 😎
📢 nextgensocial-workshop.github.io

📚 We solicit research, position, demo, and dataset paper submissions!
📆 Submissions: March 31, 2025

“Academics should learn how to incorporate AI into literature reviews.”

Are you interested in @bsky.app research? We gather and make available multiple datasets including posts, social graph snapshots, labellers, feed generators and more. More information is available on our website: bsky.leobalduf.com

Statistics about University College Dublin

University College Dublin is recruiting 50 early-career faculty through the Ad Astra Fellows programme (~ tenure-track Assistant Professorships).

– Excellent research support
– Salary: €62k–€99k
– Application deadline: 21 Feb
– All positions: www.jobs.ac.uk/enhanced/lin...
@ucddublin.bsky.social

🚨 Call for Papers 🚨
We are organizing a Special Issue on "Risks and Unintended Harms of Generative AI Systems" at ACM TIST!

More details here: dl.acm.org/journal/tist...

Deadline: May 31, 2025 (review on a rolling basis)

#LLM #misinformation #disinformation #AI #genAI

Bluesky has just surpassed 30M users. Starter packs have been a key feature - how have they worked out so far?

Check out our recent preprint for insights: arxiv.org/abs/2501.11605

Come work with us – faculty position in Computer Networking in the School of Computing Science at the University of Glasgow www.jobs.gla.ac.uk/job/lecturer...

X-Ersatz mit Benefits Der boomende Kurznachrichten-Dienst Bluesky stellt nicht nur eine geeignete Alternative zu X dar, sondern bietet Nutzenden echte Vorteile: Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt ein Forschungsteam mit führender Bet...

Ein internationales Forschungsteam mit führender Beteiligung der TU Darmstadt hat nun die erste weitreichende Datenanalyse zu #Bluesky vorgelegt: Offenheit, Transparenz, Partizipation und eine gleichmäßigere Machtverteilung sind die größten Vorteile der dezentralen Plattform, so die Studie.

Oh hey, our most recent work on @bsky.app was cited by Nature! :o

@bsky.app grew tremendously over the last year. Recently, the platform introduced “starter packs” (SP) to help users bootstrap their social graph. Anybody can create these SPs. They’re lists of accounts (e.g., “people creating anime”) that others can then follow.
🧵1/11

A green-upholstered wooden rocking chair on a wooden floor. There isn't a black and white cat sitting underneath with her head obscured. You can't see her feet poking out.

My secret hiding place where nobody can see me.

Bluesky’s science takeover: 70% of Nature poll respondents use platform Roughly 6,000 readers answered our poll, with many declaring that Bluesky was nicer, kinder and less antagonistic to science than X.

Roughly 6,000 readers answered our poll, with many declaring that Bluesky was nicer, kinder and less antagonistic to science than X

https://go.nature.com/42tH8Ai

If you're curious about the growth of @bsky.app, a few of us published a paper using April'24 data. Since, all stats have gone through the roof... arxiv.org/pdf/2408.12449

We’re building the atproto TikTok and IT WORKS!!

Spent the last 48 hours coding!

👇🏾check it out

Follow along
@skylight.social
@reedharmeyer.bsky.social

#atproto #atprotocol #tiktokban #skylight

Ros Atkins on...24 hours on Elon Musk's X timeline The BBC's Analysis editor, Ros Atkins, investigates Elon Musk's recent posts on X about grooming gangs - and looks at how one day unfolded on his timeline.

In one 24hr period Musk posted 153 times, 48% of posts about the UK, containing a wide range of misleading and falsified information aimed at disrupting public opinion and destabilising government.

A must watch analysis by the BBC’s @rosatkins.bsky.social

www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/...

We are excited to bring back ICWSM-Global Initiative also this year, 2 pg. applications due 15/01 for:
- Travel expenses coverage to the conference in 2025
- Mentorship support from a senior academic in the field

More details: www.icwsm.org/2025/attend/...

How Britain got its first internet connection – by the late pioneer who created the first password on the internet Peter Kirstein had to overcome various hurdles to connect the UK to the internet, including intransigent governments, dismissive industry and the taxman.

theconversation.com/how-britain-...

GitHub - harisbinzia/mastodoner: Mastodoner is a command line tool (and Python library) for archiving Mastodon, a decentralized micro-blogging social network. Mastodoner is a command line tool (and Python library) for archiving Mastodon, a decentralized micro-blogging social network. - harisbinzia/mastodoner

If you're doing Mastodon research, you might wanna check @harisbinzia.bsky.social useful tool for Fediverse data collection: github.com/harisbinzia/...

Dirk Kutscher has been appointed as the next @irtf.org Chair to begin at #IETF122 in Mar 2025. Thanks to Colin Perkins who has served chair for the past 6 years and to other volunteer candidates. More info on IRTF Research Groups, programs & workshops at: www.irtf.org

The peeper is back and she's peepin’ again.

bsky.app/profile/powe...

It's great to see the massive wave of people coming to 🦋.
Here's my first stab at a Computational Social Science starter pack:
go.bsky.app/2m6iQ68

Go check out similar lists to bootstrap your network:
bsky.app/starter-pack...
bsky.app/starter-pack...

Wonder if these lists could be merged somehow..

The website vs app split for Bluesky vs Threads captures the difference in user base and usage patterns beautifully.

Bluesky = knowledge sector workers who have it open all day in a tab next to their emails. “Wait what was I doing again?”

Threads = normies watching recipe videos on the commute.

Bluesky Starter Packs - Bluesky Directory Browse a list of Bluesky Starter Packs. Discover and connect with your community on Bluesky

Did you know there’s a site to search for starter packs of people to follow? Built by @mubashariqbal.com

blueskydirectory.com/starter-pack...