Dannagal Goldthwaite Young

The UW Center for an Informed Public is looking for postdocs (for 2026-2028) from across diverse disciplines whose research sheds light on the challenges of our modern information environment, promotes civic health, and/or helps people/communities navigate online spaces: apply.interfolio.com/177901

Yep. And if the left shared the aesthetic taste of the right, we’d be seeing a BlueSky feed filled with AI deepfakes of Lady Justice dumping feces onto White House or some such thing.

Their position is, every order Trump gives is legal because HE gave it; therefore, service members must obey every order he gives. Which is obviously horse shit.

Also, as a former PAO, it is distressing how far off the rails DoD statements have gone. There's zero pretext of being "apolitical."

BREAKING: Comey case dismissed without prejudice. Halligan invalidly appointed, judge rules. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

OK, So, are we to assume then that the Department of War’s position is: “troops must always obey illegal orders?”
Hence Kelly’s alleged violation is the undermining of war-criming?

It’s blowing my mind that schools, universities, public services would run headlong into this. We spent 15 years documenting black boxes. This is a black box in a black hole!

😂🙌

Same. it’s so weird!! And … seems unnecessary? 🤷‍♀️

😂😂😂😂

He also told me he had written his first ”electronic” letter to an elected official: He emailed Rep Maggie Goodlander to thank her for being part of the “Patriotic Six”™️(dad made it clear he coined that term) and urged her to keep fighting. Id say dad’s doing pretty well!

😂😂😂

💯💯

except it’s not Brendan’s job to identify a path forward… he’s a political scientist not an organizer!

Was having routine concerns about 86 year old dad’s cognitive capacity… until this morning when he referenced a news story and immediately correctly himself from “on MSNBC… sorry I mean on MSNOW”…
I figure if the dude is on top of a network rebrand (especially a dumb one) I think he’s good.

Meta halted internal research suggesting social media harm, court filing alleges Meta is alleged to have halted internal research suggesting social media harm, according to court documents.

Meta halted internal research that purportedly showed (young) people who stopped using Facebook became less depressed and anxious, according to an unredacted legal filing released on Friday. www.cnbc.com/2025/11/23/m...

Wisdom from an amazing little girl.

op: carmenveal via IG

Opinion | The Boomers Are Protesting Trump. Where Is Gen Z?

Smart commentary on youth (De)mobilization From @brendannyhan.bsky.social

“Older generations should… recognize that the world we have created does not seem to offer a viable path to making change.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/o...

High school senior, a U.S. citizen, detained by ICE in Oregon The 17-year-old was held more than five hours Friday in an ICE facility, his brother said.

Kavanaugh stop. Smashed the kid’s car windows and arrested him. He told them he was a U.S. citizen. The officer replied “I don’t care.”

www.oregonlive.com/portland/202...

Spent at least 30 seconds thinking “why is Bodega Cats posting a picture of loaf of bread cooling on a window sill?”

America's political right is "ripe for the picking" according to the logics & economics of outrage media.

The American left is vulnerable, too, obviously, but the internal heterogeneity in the big tent party makes that outrage engine run slower & less efficiently. (tldr:Dems too busy in-fighting)

👍If fighting against inexorable social change is your core ground-level political project, outrage incentive structures 100% guaranteed to show up, one after another at every turn.

When members of social group share a lot in common, it makes that social identity super top of mind. It also makes it super easy to threaten.
Social identity THREAT is a GREAT mobilizer.
Easy attention-getter.
Great for political mobilization.
Also Great for Clicks! Likes! Shares!
and Voila.

The Republican party became more internally homogenous along sociodemographic lines: race (white), religion (ev Christian), culture (conservative), geography (mostly rural).
So folks look around and their teammates share a LOT IN COMMON with them. Lots of Republicans/conservative have "good fit!"

Our two parties have become more socially sorted along lines of race and religion and culture so the parties are home to different TYPES of people (yes, in 2024 Trump made inroads with Black and Latino voters, but that still reflects a huge dominance of cultural and religious sorting. I digress)...

🎯The formula of moral & emotional in-vs-out-group ragebait works disproportionately well on the American right.
Why? Because the internal make-up of America's political parties has evolved over the last half century and now intersects with the economic incentives of the internet! 🧵

Hard for me to say how this is different from Fox News's entire business model, except that it's less sophisticated. This is transparently and obviously bad — and Elon should ban these accounts — but the spirit here of trading rage for money is pretty much a lot of right-wing media.

A Twitter account called Ivanka News tweets an AI image of a young woman wearing Muslim garb. The woman is holding a sign that says "I came here illegally. Should I be deported?" Ivanka News writes: What is your response to this person ?? In the "About this account" tab, it appears the account is based in Nigeria

An account called MAGA scope writes: Who, in your view is the great enemy of the United States? Communism, Islam, Democratic Party, or Satan? The account is based in Nigeria.

An account called MAGA Nadine writes: You go to work and find this. What would you do? The attached pic is an AI image that shows a microwave. The microwave has a sign that says "For religious reasons, this microwave is now making halal food only." The account is based in Morocco.

An account called America First posts an AI image of Tulsi Gabbard. They wrote: How would you rate your trust in Tulsi Gabbard on a scale of 1-10?

Twitter pays people based on engagement (views, retweets, comments, etc). It appears that many MAGA accounts are based abroad and they use AI technology to generate low-effort rage bait.

My guess is that this will get worse as AI tech improves. For instance, fake videos of minorities doing crime.

Top MAGA Influencers Accidentally Unmasked as Foreign Actors A new feature on Elon Musk’s X has given deeper insight into the online “America First” movement.

It’s hilarious and revelatory that a bunch of giant MAGA/America First X accounts are actually based in Eastern Europe and Nigeria.

Pope Leo in new Apostolic Letter: “We must therefore leave behind theological controversies that have lost their raison d’êtrein order to develop a common understanding and even more, a common prayer to the Holy Spirit, so that he may gather us all together in one faith and one love.”

The fact that AI will give you something that *looks like* an answer is a terrible characteristic of AI. The answers to most questions is not known (especially in medicine) and pretending that the answer is known is just dishonest.