Daphne Keller

Feeling seen by targeted product placement on Society6 rn.

@404media.co has a lot of the best articles and also, apparently, the best readers.

I'm not opining on the engineering/trust and safety issues addressed in the article, TBC. Above my paygrade!

The unappreciated role of intent in algorithmic moderation of abusive content on social media | HKS Misinformation Review A significant body of research is dedicated to developing language models that can detect various types of online abuse, for example, hate speech, cyberbullying. However, there is a disconnect between...

This is such a great topic. Lots of speech is also *illegal or legal* depending on the speaker's intention, not just her words.

Lawmakers and platforms turn a blind eye to this in pretending that platforms are reasonable enforcers of speech laws.

misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/the-...

AND I’m cited for coming up with an acronym for this awesome project! Being thanked for my branding contributions is a new thing for me.

I bet that’s because most brands aren’t looking for a really negative word to describe themselves.

bsky.app/profile/juli...

Here’s the article. I’ve had more positive feedback on it than things I spent a year on.

Apparently describing a problem that thousands of Trust and Safety people are seeing but also see the world ignoring is a good way to win hearts and minds :)

www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-...

You GUYS @mmasnick.bsky.social said this about my “compliancization” article!!

www.techdirt.com/2025/07/31/e...

For some reason people almost never turn to me for branding advice…

This happened. It’s a whole myth busting piece, that parts I read looked right.

Thanks!

When @dwillner.bsky.social says a technology will revolutionize trust and safety, everyone should listen and take notes.

I missed this demo, but the results are amazing.

BTW this is exactly how 'must carry' proposals for social media companies sound to tech law folks.

You MUST listen to RFC 2119 It turns out you can just pay people to do things.

I love this so much. I'm saving the last 60% or so to listen to when I need to feel better.

YMMV. This might only work for lawyers and engineers.

ericwbailey.website/published/yo...

Not by the people with power to enforce this contract. But yeah, excellent point for those of us trying to make words mean things and rules make sense.

I don't even know how to stack-rank this in terms of things to be upset about. At least there isn't much more in here about state supervision of the curriculum and instruction?

But anyhow. I read it and a lot of it seems bad, weird, or both. 10/10

Back to the grim part: Brown has to give the govt data about all of its applicants and students sorted by "race" and "color[.]"

I don't know how data like this was handled under previous anti-discrimination laws, maybe something like this is normal? But how it will be used now is decidedly not. 9/

This is a tiny bit funny, amidst the grimness. When I was at Brown, it seemed like every grad student I met was writing a dissertation about how socially constructed words like "race" and "ethnic characteristics" are. And now the administration has to give them legal and contractual meaning... 8/

Meanwhile, for admissions, Brown needs to avoid noticing race. It "may not, by any means, preference applicants based on race, color, or national origin in admissions throughout its programs. No proxy for racial admission will be tolerated" including personal statements or diversity narratives. 7/

Brown must give the govt
* Course evaluations that allege instructor antisemitism
* A big new student survey on antisemitism
* a detailed and not-meaningfully-anonymized spreadsheet about all reports of discrim on basis of "national origin, including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics[.]" 6/

* Convening a specific event about Jewish life at Brown
* "partnerships" with Israeli academics & Jewish organizations
* having a "robust" Program in Judaic Studies
* actively recruiting students from Jewish Day Schools. (Or a specific school maybe? No school in Providence has quite that name.) 5/

The obligations themselves and the mechanics of govt supervision are interesting/ugly. Those supervision mechanics are where information might be surfaced about individual instructors, students, staff, etc.

Brown has to do a lot of affirmative work to "combat antisemitism[.]" That includes... 4/

It looks to me like the govt can come after Brown again any time they claim the university is "fail[ing] to honor the terms of this agreement[.]"

Aside from the gender stuff (including doctors not providing gender-affirming care to patients, ugh), there is a lot in here on race and antisemitism. 3/

I'm screenshotting some passages below, but I don't think Brown administrators need to be too lawyerly about what all these words mean. The real question will be about how/how much to appease those in power. 2/

Some observations on the agreement Brown struck with the administration. It is nine pages if anyone wants to read it. www.brown.edu/sites/defaul...

This are some things that jumped out to me as an alum and a lawyer. It's not a complete overview. 1/

Addressing Threats to The United States by the Government of Brazil By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency

Is there any chance that Trump describing immigrants (his Bolsonaro-supporting buddies) as “US persons” here is a useful concession for our horrific immigrants’ rights cases?

I doubt it, but a girl’s gotta look for a silver lining.

www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

As should we all.

Behind the Song: “Drunken Angel,” Lucinda Williams Grammy-winner Lucinda Williams has been one of Americana’s biggest female talents for four decades, though her commercial success hasn’t been overwhelming. She finally gained major attention in 1998 w...

And more about Foley. americansongwriter.com/drunken-ange...

Spotify Publishes AI-Generated Songs From Dead Artists Without Permission "They could fix this problem. One of their talented software engineers could stop this fraudulent practice in its tracks, if they had the will to do so."

Here's the Spotify story. The owner of Foley's label calls Spotify's tech "an AI schlock bot" and says its song has "the authenticity of an algorithm.”

www.404media.co/spotify-publ...

All I know about Blaze Foley (RIP) is that his cultural indicia of authenticity were through the roof. He's literally the guy Lucinda Williams is singing about in the song Drunken Angel.

Which makes it all the more jarring that Spotify is making unauthorized AI-generated fake songs by him.

My favorite brief on this:
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

The beginning is about US 1st Amendment law. Later parts are just compelling stories of real teenage activists and journalists. Without real information, that growth and contribution to society is stunted.