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aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw
@aaronshaw.bsky.social
1.2K followers 370 following 260 posts

Usually professoring, parenting, running, etc. Social science and design of digital public goods in online communities. Northwestern University, Chicagoland. https://communitydata.science

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Communication & Media Studies 36%
Computer science 33%
Posts Replies Media Videos

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · 3d
Virtual event starting soon! My lab @communitydata.science is hosting a discussion about new research on organizing software communities. Sign up & join us! wiki.communitydata.science/The_Impacts_...
The Impacts of Organizational Interventions in Open Source Software Engineering - CommunityData
wiki.communitydata.science

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · 3d
Hey how's it going here? been a minute.

Reposted by Brady T. West, Brendan Nyhan, Jacob Montgomery , and 6 more

pettertornberg.com
Petter Törnberg @pettertornberg.com · 3d
LLMs are now widely used in social science as stand-ins for humans—assuming they can produce realistic, human-like text

But... can they? We don’t actually know.

In our new study, we develop a Computational Turing Test.

And our findings are striking:
LLMs may be far less human-like than we think.🧵
Computational Turing Test Reveals Systematic Differences Between Human and AI Language
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used in the social sciences to simulate human behavior, based on the assumption that they can generate realistic, human-like text. Yet this assumption rem...
arxiv.org

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · Jun 5
kudos to @zarine.net whose research and expertise really drove this. thanks also to @gowder.io for inspiring conversation in the event that precipitated the writeup.

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · Jun 5
#2 distinct categories of threats require different response strategies, which must also be localized depending on context, resources, etc.

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · Jun 5
#1 public information goods created in online communities face distinct threats over different phases of their lifecycle (e.g., a new community software project that hasn't built much yet is vulnerable in different ways than a more mature project)...

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · Jun 5
(at least) two valuable ideas here...

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · Jun 5
Defending public information goods and online communities under attack. zenodo.org/records/1560... A @communitydata.science strategy brief led by @zarine.net (with @mako.cc and me riding shotgun)
Online Community Resilience: Governing Public Information Goods Under Attack
Online communities steward a complex set of public information goods. These goods face a range of urgent threats: strategic information pollution and governance capture; legitimacy attacks by external...
zenodo.org

Reposted by Benjamin Mako Hill, Aaron Shaw

zarine.net
Zarine Kharazian @zarine.net · Jun 5
a new short research brief with @mako.cc and @aaronshaw.bsky.social synthesizes some of the work I presented at @communitydata.science Science of Community Dialogues back in April! zenodo.org/records/1560...
Online Community Resilience: Governing Public Information Goods Under Attack
Online communities steward a complex set of public information goods. These goods face a range of urgent threats: strategic information pollution and governance capture; legitimacy attacks by external...
zenodo.org

Reposted by Ethan Porter, Aaron Shaw

claesdevreese.bsky.social
Claes de Vreese @claesdevreese.bsky.social · Jun 3
Important message from @ethanvporter.bsky.social @aaronshaw.bsky.social @emmaspiro.bsky.social

“NSF has accepted a dangerous myth that misinformation research (and research more generally) is really just partisan activism […] Nothing could be further from the truth”

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Misinformation research continues to be urgent science
By one account, roughly 70% of Americans regard misinformation as a major threat, outpacing fears about climate change and infectious disease (1). This is true although the current and longer-term imp...
www.science.org

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · Jun 3
Some of this stuff is obvious, of course, but we think it's important to say certain obvious things out loud, in print, etc. when the attacks are overt, misinformed and/or made in bad faith.

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · May 21
A policy brief on what generative AI simulations of people might be good for! (based on work with the amazing team of @joon-s-pk.bsky.social @cqzou.bsky.social @mako.cc @robbwiller.bsky.social @mbernst.bsky.social Merrie Morris, Carrie Cai, and Percy Liang)
stanfordhai.bsky.social Stanford HAI @stanfordhai.bsky.social · May 21
AI agents that can simulate human behaviors and attitudes can help test ideas in social science. Our latest brief introduces a generative AI agent architecture that simulates the attitudes of 1,000+ real people. Read more: hai.stanford.edu/policy/simul...

Reposted by Robb Willer, Aaron Shaw

stanfordhai.bsky.social
Stanford HAI @stanfordhai.bsky.social · May 21
AI agents that can simulate human behaviors and attitudes can help test ideas in social science. Our latest brief introduces a generative AI agent architecture that simulates the attitudes of 1,000+ real people. Read more: hai.stanford.edu/policy/simul...

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · May 11
🧵🧵🧵 effective commons governance doesn't mean you get the equilibrium you want...
georgemonbiot.bsky.social George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · May 11
1. This is Piles Copse, the largest remaining fragment of high-ground temperate rainforest on Dartmoor. It’s a tiny speck of green in a dismal, human-made desert. Prepare yourselves for a story of breathtaking perversity, told in this thread. (There’s a one-page version at the bottom). 🧵

Reposted by Aaron Shaw

georgemonbiot.bsky.social
George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · May 11
1. This is Piles Copse, the largest remaining fragment of high-ground temperate rainforest on Dartmoor. It’s a tiny speck of green in a dismal, human-made desert. Prepare yourselves for a story of breathtaking perversity, told in this thread. (There’s a one-page version at the bottom). 🧵

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · May 10
That part of the timeline where I'm watching the White Sox game and realize maybe I'm in solidarity with the pope 🧦

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · May 10
anyhow, just awesome. thank you @rahaeli.bsky.social

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · May 10
And also also, author says they'd like to write a dissertation. Hermeneutical skills ✅➕

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · May 10
Also, while I'm waiting, has anyone got a word count on this monster?

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · May 10
Find me a better Bluesky thread. Go ahead, I'll wait.
rahaeli.bsky.social rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · May 9
Pope Leo's first sermon and, uh, his using the phrase "be ever more fully a city set upon a hill" and cf'ing it to Rev 21:10 instead of any of the others before saying "many baptized Christians" are "living in a state of practical atheism" is. Well. Shots fired!

www.npr.org/2025/05/09/g...
Read Pope Leo XIV's first homily as pope
During his homily, delivered in Italian, Leo XIV said that Christians must serve a world that is often hostile to their beliefs.
www.npr.org

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · May 9
University leaders are looking for capital. They have political capital. As with their endowments, they are inclined to sit on it. The thing about political capital though, is that if you spend it wisely it grows.
bgrueskin.bsky.social Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · May 9
New AP poll on Trump/higher education:

Maintain fed'l funding for scientific/medical research?
62% approve

Remove colleges' tax-exempt status?
30% approve

Withhold fed'l funds unless they comply w/ Trump's demands?
27% approve

Overall on Trump/colleges?
56%👎, 42%👍

apnorc.org/projects/few...

Reposted by Aaron Shaw

ntnsndr.in
Nathan Schneider @ntnsndr.in · May 9
New interview up at the Protocol Oral History Project—Camille Acey on organizational closures: protocol.ecologies.info/interviews/a...
Camille Acey: Organizational closures
Organizations too often fail to prepare for their inevitable end; The Wind Down shares best practices for healthy closures.
protocol.ecologies.info

Reposted by Aaron Shaw

rahaeli.bsky.social
rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · May 9
Pope Leo's first sermon and, uh, his using the phrase "be ever more fully a city set upon a hill" and cf'ing it to Rev 21:10 instead of any of the others before saying "many baptized Christians" are "living in a state of practical atheism" is. Well. Shots fired!

www.npr.org/2025/05/09/g...
Read Pope Leo XIV's first homily as pope
During his homily, delivered in Italian, Leo XIV said that Christians must serve a world that is often hostile to their beliefs.
www.npr.org

Reposted by Aaron Shaw

bgrueskin.bsky.social
Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · May 9
New AP poll on Trump/higher education:

Maintain fed'l funding for scientific/medical research?
62% approve

Remove colleges' tax-exempt status?
30% approve

Withhold fed'l funds unless they comply w/ Trump's demands?
27% approve

Overall on Trump/colleges?
56%👎, 42%👍

apnorc.org/projects/few...

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · May 8
dailynorthwestern.com/2025/05/08/c...
NU Faculty Senate joins Big Ten peers, signs Mutual Defense Compact
Northwestern’s Faculty Senate voted to sign an amended version of the Mutual Defense Compact signed by faculty senates at several Big Ten Academic Alliance universities at its meeting Wednesday evenin...
dailynorthwestern.com

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · May 8
(what have we been waiting for? idk, but grateful that were here)

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · May 8
Northwestern faculty Senate has passed a version of the Rutgers mutual defense compact tonight, making it (I think) a dozen faculty governance bodies around the country to do so. Go cats!

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · May 6
AI-generated from a model prompted with someone's truth social feed?
ericcolumbus.bsky.social Eric Columbus @ericcolumbus.bsky.social · May 6
🚨🚨 Deranged letter from Education Secretary Linda McMahon to Harvard’s president, cutting off federal funding for any new grants.

Worth reading in full. It is NUTS.
THE SECRETARY OF EDUCATION WASHINGTON, DC 20202 May 5, 2025 Dr. Alan Garber Office of the President Harvard University Massachusetts Hall Cambridge, MA 02138 Dr. Garber, The Federal Government has a sacred responsibility to be a wise and important steward of American taxpayer dollars. Harvard University, despite amassing a largely tax-free $53.2 billion dollar endowment (larger than the GDP of 100 countries), receives billions of dollars of taxpayer largess each year. Receiving such taxpayer funds is a privilege, not a right. Yet instead of using these funds to advance the education of its students, Harvard is engaging in a systemic pattern of violating federal law. Where do many of these "students" come from, who are they, how do they get into Harvard, or even into our country—and why is there so much HATE? These are questions that must be answered, among many more, but the biggest question of all is, why will Harvard not give straightforward answers to the American public? Harvard University has made a mockery of this country's higher education system. It has invited foreign students, who engage in violent behavior and show contempt for the United States of America, to its campus. In every way, Harvard has failed to abide by its legal obligations, its ethical and fiduciary duties, its transparency responsibilities, and any semblance of academic rigor. It had scrapped standardized testing requirements and a normalized grading system. This year Harvard was forced to adopt an embarrassing "remedial math" program for undergraduates. Why is it, we ask, that Harvard has to teach simple and basic mathematics, when it is supposedly so hard to get into this "acclaimed university"? Who is getting in under such a low standard when others, with fabulous grades and a great understanding of the highest levels of mathematics, are being rejected? Harvard has even been embroiled in humiliating plagiarism scandals, exposed clearly and plainly in the media, with respect to your then… running the institution in a totally chaotic way. Harvard alumnus and highly successful hedge fund manager Bill Ackman noted that, under her leadership, Harvard has become "a political advocacy organization for one party." Ackman has called for the resignation of Pritzker, concluding that the "[t)he mismanagement here is Penny Pritzker" and noting that any serious corporation would have removed her after a litany of recent failings and the fact that, incredibly, "Harvard is not in a good financial position." According to Ackman, one of the world's foremost finance experts, Harvard's so-called S53 billion endowment is "massively overstated as far as what it's really worth," and Harvard has irresponsibly taken out $8 billion in debt. If this is true, it is concerning evidence of Harvard's disastrous mismanagement, indicating an urgent need for massive reform-not continued taxpayer investment. If Harvard prefers not to change, then Harvard should have no problem using its overflowing endowment to fund its bloated bureaucracy. At its best, a university should fulfill the highest ideals of our Nation, and enlighten the thousands of hopeful students who walk through its magnificent gates. But Harvard has betrayed this ideal. Perhaps most alarmingly, Harvard has failed to abide by the United States Supreme Court's ruling demanding that it end its racial preferencing, and continues to engage in ugly racism in its undergraduate and graduate schools, and even within the Harvard Law Review itself. Our universities should be bastions of merit that reward and celebrate excellence and achievement. They should not be incubators of discrimination that encourage resentment and instill grievance and racism into our wonderful young Americans. The above concerns are only a fraction of the long list of Harvard's consistent violations of its own legal duties. Given these and other concerning allegations, this letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek GRANTS from the fede… Federal Agencies. The Administration's priorities have not changed and today's letter marks the end of new grants for the University. These requests will advance the best interests of Harvard University, so it can reclaim its status as a respected educational institution for the future leaders of America. Thank you for your attention to this matter! Sincerely, Linda E. McMahon Secretary of Education

Reposted by Michael Barnett, Kelly R. Zamudio, Joan A. Casey , and 3 more

ericcolumbus.bsky.social
Eric Columbus @ericcolumbus.bsky.social · May 6
🚨🚨 Deranged letter from Education Secretary Linda McMahon to Harvard’s president, cutting off federal funding for any new grants.

Worth reading in full. It is NUTS.
THE SECRETARY OF EDUCATION WASHINGTON, DC 20202 May 5, 2025 Dr. Alan Garber Office of the President Harvard University Massachusetts Hall Cambridge, MA 02138 Dr. Garber, The Federal Government has a sacred responsibility to be a wise and important steward of American taxpayer dollars. Harvard University, despite amassing a largely tax-free $53.2 billion dollar endowment (larger than the GDP of 100 countries), receives billions of dollars of taxpayer largess each year. Receiving such taxpayer funds is a privilege, not a right. Yet instead of using these funds to advance the education of its students, Harvard is engaging in a systemic pattern of violating federal law. Where do many of these "students" come from, who are they, how do they get into Harvard, or even into our country—and why is there so much HATE? These are questions that must be answered, among many more, but the biggest question of all is, why will Harvard not give straightforward answers to the American public? Harvard University has made a mockery of this country's higher education system. It has invited foreign students, who engage in violent behavior and show contempt for the United States of America, to its campus. In every way, Harvard has failed to abide by its legal obligations, its ethical and fiduciary duties, its transparency responsibilities, and any semblance of academic rigor. It had scrapped standardized testing requirements and a normalized grading system. This year Harvard was forced to adopt an embarrassing "remedial math" program for undergraduates. Why is it, we ask, that Harvard has to teach simple and basic mathematics, when it is supposedly so hard to get into this "acclaimed university"? Who is getting in under such a low standard when others, with fabulous grades and a great understanding of the highest levels of mathematics, are being rejected? Harvard has even been embroiled in humiliating plagiarism scandals, exposed clearly and plainly in the media, with respect to your then… running the institution in a totally chaotic way. Harvard alumnus and highly successful hedge fund manager Bill Ackman noted that, under her leadership, Harvard has become "a political advocacy organization for one party." Ackman has called for the resignation of Pritzker, concluding that the "[t)he mismanagement here is Penny Pritzker" and noting that any serious corporation would have removed her after a litany of recent failings and the fact that, incredibly, "Harvard is not in a good financial position." According to Ackman, one of the world's foremost finance experts, Harvard's so-called S53 billion endowment is "massively overstated as far as what it's really worth," and Harvard has irresponsibly taken out $8 billion in debt. If this is true, it is concerning evidence of Harvard's disastrous mismanagement, indicating an urgent need for massive reform-not continued taxpayer investment. If Harvard prefers not to change, then Harvard should have no problem using its overflowing endowment to fund its bloated bureaucracy. At its best, a university should fulfill the highest ideals of our Nation, and enlighten the thousands of hopeful students who walk through its magnificent gates. But Harvard has betrayed this ideal. Perhaps most alarmingly, Harvard has failed to abide by the United States Supreme Court's ruling demanding that it end its racial preferencing, and continues to engage in ugly racism in its undergraduate and graduate schools, and even within the Harvard Law Review itself. Our universities should be bastions of merit that reward and celebrate excellence and achievement. They should not be incubators of discrimination that encourage resentment and instill grievance and racism into our wonderful young Americans. The above concerns are only a fraction of the long list of Harvard's consistent violations of its own legal duties. Given these and other concerning allegations, this letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek GRANTS from the fede… Federal Agencies. The Administration's priorities have not changed and today's letter marks the end of new grants for the University. These requests will advance the best interests of Harvard University, so it can reclaim its status as a respected educational institution for the future leaders of America. Thank you for your attention to this matter! Sincerely, Linda E. McMahon Secretary of Education

aaronshaw.bsky.social
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · May 5
👀👀👀
ryanboyd.bsky.social Holidays Ryan @ryanboyd.bsky.social · May 4
Incredible reporting from USC student journalists about how a ginned-up financial crisis is being used to crush faculty and staff power.
ANALYSIS: USC deliberately escalated ‘structural deficit’
A doubling debt and egregious management growth place blame on the university.
www.uscannenbergmedia.com