Rahul Bhargava
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rahulbot.bsky.social
Rahul Bhargava
@rahulbot.bsky.social
590 followers 250 following 94 posts
Creative data & computational journalism. "Community Data" book eBook and pre-order available: http://communitydatabook.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Rahul Bhargava
bgrueskin.bsky.social
Kyle Kingsbury is not a journalist. He is not an op-ed writer.

He is a computer safety researcher.

And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.

In under 1600 words.

aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
I Want You to Understand Chicago Politics Chicago 2025-11-08 I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time. Every day my phone buzzes. It is a neighborhood group: four people were kidnapped at the corner drugstore. A friend a mile away sends a Slack message: she was at the scene when masked men assaulted and abducted two people on the street. A plumber working on my pipes is distraught, and I find out that two of his employees were kidnapped that morning. A week later it happens again. An email arrives. Agents with guns have chased a teacher into the school where she works. They did not have a warrant. They dragged her away, ignoring her and her colleagues’ pleas to show proof of her documentation. That evening I stand a few feet from the parents of Rayito de Sol and listen to them describe, with anguish, how good Ms. Diana was to their children. What it is like to have strangers with guns traumatize your kids. For a teacher to hide a three-year-old child for fear they might be killed. How their relatives will no longer leave the house. I hear the pain and fury in their voices, and I wonder who will be next. Understand what it is to pray in Chicago. On September 19th, Reverend David Black, lead pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, was praying outside the ICE detention center in Broadview when a DHS agent shot him in the head with pepper balls. Pepper balls are never supposed to be fired at the head because they can seriously injure, or even kill. “We could hear them laughing as they were shooting us from the roof,” Black recalled. He is not the only member of the clergy ICE has assaulted. Methodist pastor Hannah Kardon was violently arrested on October 17th, and Baptist pastor Michael Woolf was shot with pepper balls on November 1st. Understand what it is to sleep in Chicago. On the night of September 30th, federal agents rappelled from a Black Hawk helicopter to execute a raid on an apartment building on the South Sho…
November 9, 2025 at 8:49 PM
rahulbot.bsky.social
We at Media Cloud recently hosted a small New(s) Knowledge Symposium to share learning and examples of teams and projects building knowledge from streams of news content. Curious about the event? See @cj-robinson.bsky.social's piece for @columjournreview.bsky.social
. www.cjr.org/tow_center/w...
Why economists and doctors are monitoring local news.
A reflection on the New(s) Knowledge Symposium.
www.cjr.org
November 10, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by Rahul Bhargava
jwyg.bsky.social
Public Data Cultures is out today on @politybooks.bsky.social! 📗🎊 jonathangray.org/2025/10/23/p...
It aims to nurture critical and creative engagements with public data as cultural material, medium of participation and as site of transnational politics. Happy to see it out in the world! 🦔🌌💜
unboxing Public Data Cultures book Copies of the book on a train in Totoro bag. Front and back cover of Public Data Cultures with quotes and book blurb.
October 23, 2025 at 5:21 PM
rahulbot.bsky.social
Are you an API user of our @mediacloud.bsky.social online news archive? Minor Python API client release to make your life a little easier vis-a-vis dates. Details on our new discussion forum: github.com/orgs/mediacl...
Mediacloud API 4.5.0 is out · mediacloud · Discussion #2
We've push a small update to the API, which includes several simple QoL fixes to make errors returned by the mediacloud service easier for the user to debug! Find the updated version on pypi or her...
github.com
November 7, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by Rahul Bhargava
robkitchin.bsky.social
Trans data epistemologies: Transgender ways of knowing with data by @drnikko.bsky.social and @ameliadogan.bsky.social in @bigdatasoc.bsky.social journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
Trans data epistemologies: Transgender ways of knowing with data - Nikko Stevens, Amelia Lee Doğan, 2025
Amidst proliferating threats to trans rights, transgender activists are using data and data activism to advocate for and to protect trans communities. This tran...
journals.sagepub.com
October 30, 2025 at 8:46 AM
Reposted by Rahul Bhargava
mediacloud.bsky.social
Three weeks ago, MEAG had the privilege of bringing together researchers, journalists, and technologists from around the world for the New(s) Knowledge Symposium: from research to intelligence.

A big thank-you to all of our speakers and participant for contributing ideas, data, and dialogue!
November 6, 2025 at 4:57 PM
rahulbot.bsky.social
New diss track from @columjournreview.bsky.social dropped! How did I miss this a few months ago. 🎧👏🏽
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq29...
Columbia Journalism Review presents: The PSAi
That image you shared? Might not be real. Let the PSAi show you what is, using the viral fakes everyone fell for. Find out more at thepsai.com.
www.youtube.com
November 6, 2025 at 1:02 PM
rahulbot.bsky.social
@suesmith.lol I'm in the camp of needing a Glitch replacement for teaching. Going to try out your CodeSpaces template to see if it fits the bill. Thanks for sharing it!
November 5, 2025 at 10:47 PM
rahulbot.bsky.social
Our next experimental student data theatre production is in rehearsals! So exciting to join the team to see an early run last week. In Boston and curious about creative data experiences? Keep an eye out for "The Numbers" @ Northeastern Nov 13-23. eventregistration.northeastern.edu/event/9fc996...
Photo of an under-construction set in a black-box style theatre. people are distributed around the floor, set, and on stage. They are looking at someone out-of-shot to the left that is speaking. Photo of under-construction scene from play. An actor on either side of a terraced scaffolding with 5 levels. One actor stands on the lowest level. One stands on the next. The next is empty. Four stand on the next highest, one with their hands raised. One stands behind on the highest level. The ones on the lower levels are looking up and back at the higher levels. The Numbers Directed by Jonathan Carr Devised by the ensemble This production is developed with the Data Theatre Collaborative, as part of its Civic Data Theatre project, with support from the Mellon Foundation. November 13 - 23, 2025 In the Studio Theatre Presented By Northeastern University Department of Theatre THE NUMBERS Directed by Jonathan Carr Devised by the company This original theatre piece examines the many ways we interact with data in our lives: how it reflects the things we know and fear, how it can be a tool for us to help repair a broken world, and how it can be manipulated whether or not we are paying attention. This performance experiments with creative forms of audience deliberation, and portions of it are designed in collaboration with the City of Boston’s Office of the Environment to feed community wisdom into the city’s climate action plan. This production is developed with the Data Theatre Collaborative, as part of its Civic Data Theatre project, with support from the Mellon Foundation.
November 5, 2025 at 1:01 PM
rahulbot.bsky.social
Election day in Boston! @thescopenu.bsky.social has your city election guide for any last minute logistics: thescopeboston.org/boston-elect...
And city council candidate Q&As: thescopeboston.org/10138/boston...
Boston 2025 City Elections
It won’t be long until Boston voters head to the polls to cast ballots for the city’s municipal election. The general election will occur on Nov. 4, where residents will vote to elect a mayor,…
thescopeboston.org
November 4, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Reposted by Rahul Bhargava
deborahelizabeth.bsky.social
Vote The constitution Is not going to Uphold Itself
November 4, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Reposted by Rahul Bhargava
craignewmark.bsky.social
An inside look at Consumer Reports’s cybersecurity and privacy testing lab, where its experts work to keep consumers safe from digital harms. Read more here: innovation.consumerreports.org/how-crs-test...
How CR’s Testing Team is Boosting Security—One Smart Product at a Time - Innovation at Consumer Reports
Take a look inside CR’s testing lab, where our engineers are strengthening the security of connected devices and boosting consumer trust
innovation.consumerreports.org
November 3, 2025 at 10:04 PM
rahulbot.bsky.social
This is a provocative challenge to my existing distaste for chat-based automation of simple tools. 🤔
palewi.re Ben Welsh @palewi.re · 7d
🗣️📈 Today, I'm happy to release a new tool empowering chatbots like AnthropicAI's Claude to create charts with Datawrapper, a leading newsroom tool for publishing data.
November 3, 2025 at 3:57 PM
rahulbot.bsky.social
Excited to have @sydneypurdue.bsky.social presenting the latest in our ongoing work on data theatre at the Input Visualization Workshop at @ieeevis.bsky.social this week. Embodied methods worked to create data & build cohesion in summer workshops. Preprint at osf.io/aeu5g
November 3, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by Rahul Bhargava
markjacob.bsky.social
🧵🧵 This thread highlights some of media people and organizations energetically covering the Trump regime’s campaign to terrorize Chicagoans. These folks are well worth a Bluesky follow.
Of special note is Unraveled, the kind of independent journalism we need when some legacy outlets are in retreat.
unraveledpress.com unraveled @unraveledpress.com · 8d
ICE/CBP is rampaging through the burbs again this morning. Sightings and kidnappings reported across Bolingbrook, Summit, Addison, Bensenville, Melrose Park, Brookfield.
November 2, 2025 at 4:59 PM
rahulbot.bsky.social
@buffer.com feature request idea 💡: I often mention the same people in posts I’m drafting in Buffer for LinkedIn and bluesky. Would be cool if there was a list of recently or frequently mentioned users it’d show me to try to help me compose more quickly and not mistype an account name.
October 31, 2025 at 7:08 PM
rahulbot.bsky.social
Weekend watch: my keynote on Community Data from @csvconf.bsky.social this fall has been posted. Focused on the importance of making collaborative data mirrors, not data windows. Wonderful crowd, beautiful setting. So thankful to have participated. www.youtube.com/watch?v=v498...
Rahul Bhargava - Keynote
The tools of data storytelling are primarily designed to observe and quantify other groups, as if looking through a *window* for measurement. To use data for community empowerment we need to reset…
www.youtube.com
October 31, 2025 at 1:03 PM
rahulbot.bsky.social
Wait he co-wrote #1 Spice! WHAT? 🤯 How did I not know this until now? Social media has really let me down on this one.
October 30, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Reposted by Rahul Bhargava
mfroomkin.bsky.social
Why is it that every disappeared US citizen is not front page news? At the very least we should have a little box with a count of the number of citizens who have been taken away and are not locatable and a link to a story with photos & min-bios, just as we used to do with military casually figures.
iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social Raider @iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social · 13d
In Portland, Oregon, masked ICE GOONS abducted and vanished US citizen Gonzalo Catalan last week. Tragically, his family remains unaware of his whereabouts and has not received any communication from him as of today.
October 30, 2025 at 2:31 AM
rahulbot.bsky.social
Workshops for @infoplusconf.bsky.social are filling up! Street viz, period data, decarbonization, community data, sonification, data quilting, infographics for movement. Nov 14th in Boston. Sign up now: informationplusconference.com/2025/worksho...
October 29, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by Rahul Bhargava
kanarinka.bsky.social
Check out the fantastic information design and data visualization workshops at Info+ coming up on Nov 14th - h/t @rahulbot.bsky.social submissions.infoplus.team/event/9/cont...
Information+ 2025 Workshops
Information+, an interdisciplinary conference for information design and data visualization, invites participatory workshop proposals from all relevant areas of professional practice, research, and pe...
submissions.infoplus.team
October 28, 2025 at 7:02 PM
rahulbot.bsky.social
Media Cloud data bite: the US right is talking a lot more about "abolish ice" as a narrative vs the left. These are older partisanship collections, but clearly the right isn't focused on imagining a post-ICE country. ICE was only _founded_ in 2003.
Horizontal chart showing news stories form partisan collections of media that mention "abolish ice" over the last 3 months. Furthest right partisan media has 46 mentions, while others each have 20ish.
October 28, 2025 at 12:47 PM
rahulbot.bsky.social
Local protest mapper tool update: had to remove ACLED due to new data restrictions, but CCC data updated 2 weeks ago. Make embeddable maps of protests in your area. Considering a bubble-map option since so many protests are happening in the same place 🤔 dataculture.northeastern.edu/local-protes...
October 27, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Rahul Bhargava
anildash.com
It’s too bad only farmers are people and not librarians or artists or healthcare workers or researchers.
carlquintanilla.bsky.social Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 15d
NYT puts farmer pain on Page One:

@nytimes.com
October 27, 2025 at 2:32 PM
Reposted by Rahul Bhargava
albertocairo.com
The full agenda of the Computation+Journalism Symposium is online! Join us in Miami for two days (December 11-12) of great talks, workshops, panels, and paper presentations: cplusj2025.com/agenda Register here: events.miami.edu/event/cplusj...
Screenshot of the website, showing the dates (December 11-12) and the place (Miami)
October 20, 2025 at 6:52 PM