alice e marwick
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alicetiara.bsky.social
alice e marwick
@alicetiara.bsky.social
13K followers 470 following 360 posts

Dir of Research, Data & Society. Academic. Studies tech & society, far-right disinfo. UNC CITAP. Loves pop cult. Mom, fashion victim, sci fi/fantasy enthusiast. Author of The Private is Political, Status Update. NYC forever. She/her/femme 💅🏻 tiara.org .. more

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Alice E. Marwick is a communication scholar, academic, and author, who currently works as an Associate Professor in the Communication department and Principal Researcher at the Center for Information, Technology and Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an affiliated researcher with the Data and Society Research Institute. Marwick has written for publications such as the New York Times, and the Guardian. Her works include the examination of politics, race, social media and gender. She has been a keynote speaker for various universities throughout the United States. .. more

Communication & Media Studies 35%
Sociology 19%
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alicetiara.bsky.social
alice e marwick @alicetiara.bsky.social · Dec 4
Wrote a big hot take for Nieman’s 2025 predictions & managed to shoehorn in a lot of pet peeves while using “epistemic” sparingly www.niemanlab.org/2024/12/the-...
The mainstream media will lose its last grip on relevancy
"The gap between mainstream media readers, people who get most of their news through influencers or partisan social media, and people who barely think about news at all will create a fundamental schis...
www.niemanlab.org

Reposted by Marc Lynch, Paul Goldstein, Bonnie Honig , and 2 more

johnpfaff.bsky.social
John Pfaff @johnpfaff.bsky.social · 3d
There had better be trials. And not just for the low-level thugs carrying out these orders, but for everyone up the chain of command.

If we get past this, the solution isn’t to pretend it never happened and invite Stephen Miller to Harvard’s Institute of Politics.

It’s trials w real punishments.
lyndab08.bsky.social Lynda Lopez @lyndab08.bsky.social · 4d
A family friend was telling us about what her husband shared about his experience in Broadview before he was deported back to Mexico. She's been sharing to friends and family because she's just in disbelief & horror what her husband told her. She wasn't able to talk to him until he was in Mexico.

Reposted by Woodrow Hartzog

alicetiara.bsky.social
alice e marwick @alicetiara.bsky.social · 4d
When people ask me how we can stop online scams, I point to THIS
jeffhorwitz.bsky.social Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 4d
Meta earns $3.5 billion every six months from showing Faceboon and Instagram users 15 billion “higher legal risk” scam ad impressions a day, internal documents state.

That haul vastly exceeds how much the company expects regulators
To fine it for running scam ads.

www.reuters.com/investigatio...
www.reuters.com

Reposted by Alice Marwick

whitneycwimbish.bsky.social
Whitney Curry Wimbish @whitneycwimbish.bsky.social · 4d
Very exciting to see activists launching a new nonprofit today to keep building on the community of volunteers that came together to get Mamdani elected.

Our Time is a 501(c)(4) and plans to start events in December.
Our Time
A campaign for an affordable NYC
ourtime.nyc

Reposted by Brendan Nyhan, Leigh Sparks, Cathy N. Davidson , and 8 more

jeffhorwitz.bsky.social
Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 4d
Meta earns $3.5 billion every six months from showing Faceboon and Instagram users 15 billion “higher legal risk” scam ad impressions a day, internal documents state.

That haul vastly exceeds how much the company expects regulators
To fine it for running scam ads.

www.reuters.com/investigatio...
www.reuters.com

alicetiara.bsky.social
alice e marwick @alicetiara.bsky.social · 5d
Genuine question: who is advising Mamdani on tech, surveillance, AI, etc?

Reposted by Will Jennings, Steve Peers, Cathy N. Davidson , and 7 more

mjhaugen.bsky.social
Matthew Haugen @mjhaugen.bsky.social · 6d
Wow it turns out the entire country is not permanently reactionary because Trump won an election by 1.5%

Reposted by Will Jennings, Julie Leask, Justin H. Kirkland , and 1 more

jayvanbavel.bsky.social
Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 6d
Engagement-based #algorithms amplify intergroup hostility + moral-emotional content, leading it to be overrepresented in your feed

This leads us to falsely perceive that people want to see this kind of content and share more of it.

This technology fuels false polarization: osf.io/preprints/os...

Reposted by Rebecca Tushnet, Alice Marwick

mmasnick.bsky.social
Mike Masnick @mmasnick.bsky.social · 8d
There are a large number of Democratic politicians who insist that Jonathan Haidt is a reliable narrator and one who they should take their legislative cues from. They should be asked why they're supporting someone the Heritage Foundation is cheering on in their efforts to censor the internet.
Tweet from Heritage Foundation's boss Kevin Roberts: Thank you, Jonathan Haidt, for reminding everyone Heritage yesterday that tech tycoons like Leonid Radvinsky and Solomon Friedman are profiting to the tune of millions by preying on America's young men and women. We are proud to be in this fight with you. It is time to arrest, prosecute, and convict the sick perverts behind OnlyFans and PornHub.

Reposted by Michael Zimmer

alicetiara.bsky.social
alice e marwick @alicetiara.bsky.social · 12d
Read more from my fantastic team at D&S studying how people use general purpose LLMs for mental health and emotional support, including a new Big Data & Society paper:
datasociety.bsky.social Data & Society @datasociety.bsky.social · 20d
“The perennial availability of AI is rapidly reshaping our expectations of care,” @briana-v.bsky.social and Ranjit Singh write in a new blog post about this piece. “Care is not mere output. It lives in the slow, difficult work of attunement, which no machine can truly provide.”

alicetiara.bsky.social
alice e marwick @alicetiara.bsky.social · 12d
And it's Open Access! Read it here: link.springer.com/article/10.1... and thanks to the editors, reviewers, and my wonderful collaborators for making this such a fun and relatively painless process.
A chatbot for the soul: mental health care, privacy, and intimacy in AI-based conversational agents - Communication and Change
Artificial intelligence-based conversational agents—chatbots—are increasingly integrated into telehealth platforms, employee wellness programs, and mobile applications to address structural gaps in me...
link.springer.com

alicetiara.bsky.social
alice e marwick @alicetiara.bsky.social · 12d
Moreover, both conventional impact assessments *and* human-AI research often ignore the larger regulatory, economic, and political landscape in which AI chatbots & users exist. Understanding context and working with impacted communities is crucial to understand both immediate & downstream effects.

alicetiara.bsky.social
alice e marwick @alicetiara.bsky.social · 12d
However, while therapeutic conversations are governed by privacy laws, wellness chatbots are not. We call for regulation on both therapeutic and general-purpose chatbots that takes into account that people use chatbots for mental health guidance even when that is not their intended purpose.

alicetiara.bsky.social
alice e marwick @alicetiara.bsky.social · 12d
The paper draws from participatory algorithmic impact assessments- focus groups with impacted users- to surface their concerns. Wellness/psychic chatbots can encourage users to share very personal information, and their recommendations may feel revelatory or even divine.

Reposted by Tama Leaver

alicetiara.bsky.social
alice e marwick @alicetiara.bsky.social · 12d
🚨NEW PAPER ALERT 🚨 @tamigraph.bsky.social @briana-v.bsky.social and I discuss wellness chatbots, their labor implications, & "private vibes" vs "privacy". We call for critical human-AI communication scholarship that takes into account context & political economy: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
A chatbot for the soul: mental health care, privacy, and intimacy in AI-based conversational agents - Communication and Change
Artificial intelligence-based conversational agents—chatbots—are increasingly integrated into telehealth platforms, employee wellness programs, and mobile applications to address structural gaps in me...
link.springer.com

alicetiara.bsky.social
alice e marwick @alicetiara.bsky.social · 13d
Since moving to civil society, I've noticed a huge dearth of support for researchers working in the space - although there are tons of us! Come join this D&SxACLUxCDT event where we talk about the opportunities and challenges of research to support tech policy & advocacy!
thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social Dhanaraj Thakur @thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social · 14d
Advocating with Evidence: Lessons for Tech Researchers in Civil Society.
Join us on November 13 for an online discussion featuring @alicetiara.bsky.social @mkgerchick.bsky.social @jordanaut.bsky.social and me.

Organized by @cdt.org @datasociety.bsky.social @aclu.org

cdt.org/event/advoca...
Advocating with Evidence: Lessons for Tech Researchers in Civil Society November 13, 2025, 10-11am ET online Civil society is struggling to address how technology and the tech industry contribute to eroding democracy, amplifying bias, and accelerating hateful ideologies. Timely, accessible findings are necessary to inform policy and advocacy, but it can be challenging to produce research that is simultaneously rigorous and high-impact. This panel brings together research experts and practitioners who bridge policy and academia to advance civil rights and challenge tech injustice. Drawing on their experience as research leaders, the panelists will discuss how to conduct effective research on the harms of digital technologies and for developing solutions that center marginalized and vulnerable communities.

Reposted by Alice Marwick

thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social
Dhanaraj Thakur @thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social · 14d
Advocating with Evidence: Lessons for Tech Researchers in Civil Society.
Join us on November 13 for an online discussion featuring @alicetiara.bsky.social @mkgerchick.bsky.social @jordanaut.bsky.social and me.

Organized by @cdt.org @datasociety.bsky.social @aclu.org

cdt.org/event/advoca...
Advocating with Evidence: Lessons for Tech Researchers in Civil Society November 13, 2025, 10-11am ET online Civil society is struggling to address how technology and the tech industry contribute to eroding democracy, amplifying bias, and accelerating hateful ideologies. Timely, accessible findings are necessary to inform policy and advocacy, but it can be challenging to produce research that is simultaneously rigorous and high-impact. This panel brings together research experts and practitioners who bridge policy and academia to advance civil rights and challenge tech injustice. Drawing on their experience as research leaders, the panelists will discuss how to conduct effective research on the harms of digital technologies and for developing solutions that center marginalized and vulnerable communities.

alicetiara.bsky.social
alice e marwick @alicetiara.bsky.social · 17d
KOSA KEEPS RISING FROM THE DEAD - DON'T LET THIS ZOMBIE BILL SUCCEED. It would implement widespread age verification across all 50 states and censor queer/reproductive content!
fightforthefuture.org Fight for the Future @fightforthefuture.org · 17d
🚨‼️As of yesterday KOSA is at 64 cosponsors with @vanhollen.senate.gov + @kim.senate.gov - who claim to support LGTBQ+ rights but are clearly okay with supporting legislation that’ll censor us off the internet- newly signed on.

You know what to do: www.stopkosa.com

alicetiara.bsky.social
alice e marwick @alicetiara.bsky.social · 17d
Tenenbaums BY FAR

Reposted by David Rosnick, Alice Marwick

fightforthefuture.org
Fight for the Future @fightforthefuture.org · 17d
🚨‼️As of yesterday KOSA is at 64 cosponsors with @vanhollen.senate.gov + @kim.senate.gov - who claim to support LGTBQ+ rights but are clearly okay with supporting legislation that’ll censor us off the internet- newly signed on.

You know what to do: www.stopkosa.com
Article excerpt with text that reads The third and final way lawmakers are advancing anti-LGBTQ+ censorship is by reintroducing KOSA, the fake online safety bill, that would establish a “duty of care” for apps and websites used by young people, requiring them to use censorship to “prevent and mitigate” harms like anxiety and depression. KOSA takes the same logic of the bans on drag shows and LGBTQ+ books and applies it to the internet, allowing censorship of a broad range of information in the name of protecting kids from real online harm.

alicetiara.bsky.social
alice e marwick @alicetiara.bsky.social · 18d
mom's group chat at my son's old school poppin' this morning because a kid sent a TikTok to the kids group chat "Where Peppa comes home to find her family slain in pools of blood, and she kills Shrek with a sword in revenge"

Reposted by Michael Zimmer, Alice Marwick

datasociety.bsky.social
Data & Society @datasociety.bsky.social · 20d
“The perennial availability of AI is rapidly reshaping our expectations of care,” @briana-v.bsky.social and Ranjit Singh write in a new blog post about this piece. “Care is not mere output. It lives in the slow, difficult work of attunement, which no machine can truly provide.”

alicetiara.bsky.social
alice e marwick @alicetiara.bsky.social · 20d
Basically: US academia will drastically shrink. It will decrease in influence worldwide and domestically, and ideas from academia will be far less likely to enter mainstream. Knowledge production privatized, less accessible, less public.

alicetiara.bsky.social
alice e marwick @alicetiara.bsky.social · 20d
Downstream effects: academic publishing devastated; fewer people with academic training means smaller audience for academic work (regardless of where it's published); culture of academia gets more insular; conferences get smaller

alicetiara.bsky.social
alice e marwick @alicetiara.bsky.social · 20d
OK, given Harvard's news, thinking through a drastically reduced PhD student workforce:
* Fewer grad student labor for TAs: Best case: new tenured positions! More likely: more adjuncts
* Fewer graduates of PhD programs. Best case: More PhD candidates get jobs! More likely: Fewer jobs

alicetiara.bsky.social
alice e marwick @alicetiara.bsky.social · 20d
Great! So great! Everything is just great!
jbenmenachem.com jon ben-menachem @jbenmenachem.com · 20d
Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs

- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero
Harvard FAS Cuts Ph.D. Seats By More Than Half Across Next Two Admissions Cycles | News | The Harvard Crimson
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences slashed the number of Ph.D. student admissions slots for the Science division by more than 75 percent and for the Arts & Humanities division by about 60 percent for th...
www.thecrimson.com

Reposted by Joanna Bryson, Steven L. Salzberg, Lisa W. Fazio , and 49 more

jbenmenachem.com
jon ben-menachem @jbenmenachem.com · 20d
Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs

- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero
Harvard FAS Cuts Ph.D. Seats By More Than Half Across Next Two Admissions Cycles | News | The Harvard Crimson
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences slashed the number of Ph.D. student admissions slots for the Science division by more than 75 percent and for the Arts & Humanities division by about 60 percent for th...
www.thecrimson.com

Reposted by Alice Marwick

datasociety.bsky.social
Data & Society @datasociety.bsky.social · Oct 9
D&S Director of Research @alicetiara.bsky.social talks to @kqedforum.bsky.social about what increasingly realistic deepfake videos mean for our ability to trust what we see online, with @jasonkoebler.bsky.social & @maxread.info. www.kqed.org/forum/201010...
Deepfake Videos Just Got More Realistic…and More Dangerous | KQED
We talk about OpenAI's Sora and what kind of destabilizing impact could it have on our society.
www.kqed.org

Reposted by Alice Marwick

kqedforum.bsky.social
KQED Forum @kqedforum.bsky.social · Oct 8
🎙️ ON AIR:

We're talking to journalist @maxread.info, @datasociety.bsky.social's @alicetiara.bsky.social and @404media.co's @jasonkoebler.bsky.social about the impact that increasingly realistic deepfake videos could have on our society.

❓Are AI videos changing how you use the internet?

📻 Listen:
Deepfake Videos Just Got More Realistic…and More Dangerous | KQED
We talk about OpenAI's Sora and what kind of destabilizing impact could it have on our society.
buff.ly

alicetiara.bsky.social
alice e marwick @alicetiara.bsky.social · Oct 3
This was such a great convo and thrilled to be part of a whole series on scams and schemes. Thanks @alixdunn.com !
datasociety.bsky.social Data & Society @datasociety.bsky.social · Oct 3
How is AI changing the nature of scams? @lanalanalana.bsky.social & @alicetiara.bsky.social spoke to @alixdunn.com on @themaybe.org to explain how AI automates & scales the work already being done in massive, exploitative “cybercrime compounds” around the world. www.themaybe.org/podcast/gotc...
The Maybe
www.themaybe.org

Reposted by Alice Marwick

datasociety.bsky.social
Data & Society @datasociety.bsky.social · Oct 3
How is AI changing the nature of scams? @lanalanalana.bsky.social & @alicetiara.bsky.social spoke to @alixdunn.com on @themaybe.org to explain how AI automates & scales the work already being done in massive, exploitative “cybercrime compounds” around the world. www.themaybe.org/podcast/gotc...
The Maybe
www.themaybe.org