Dhanaraj Thakur
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thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social
Dhanaraj Thakur
@thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social
210 followers 570 following 34 posts
Research Director, Center for Democracy & Technology @cdt.org

Board Member: #shepersisted and the Baltimore Digital Equity Coalition.
Member: Global Majority Research Committee (Trust and Safety Foundation).
Posts Replies Media Videos
thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social
This Thursday Nov 13 at 10 ET. Please join us!
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.
November 10, 2025 at 10:34 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
nullset.bsky.social
Interested in #TechPolicy #internships? Join us at @cdt.org next summer! Several options: Legal, research, comms, etc.

cdt.org/careers/
Careers
Current Openingsfind yourself engaged in passionate discussions about privacy policies? Are you yearning to put your expertise to work on internet neutrality legislation? If so, you might be a great f...
cdt.org
November 10, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
datasociety.bsky.social
This Thursday, 11/13! D&S Director of Research @alicetiara.bsky.social will take part in a panel discussion about the opportunities and challenges of using research to support tech policy and advocacy, and share strategies for ethical, effective research that centers marginalized communities.
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.
November 10, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
katypearce.bsky.social
Another good Verge article that I might add to class readings.
www.theverge.com/features/664...
Indigenous scientists are fighting to protect their data — and their culture
They’re worried about the loss of their research.
www.theverge.com
November 9, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
carnage4life.bsky.social
Same here. I’ve never even seen a group of friends.
November 8, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
cdt.org
New report from CDT’s Hannah Quay-de la Vallee + @thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social, & guest author Morgan Badurak introduces a rubric to evaluate transparency from edtech vendors. cdt.org/insights/ope...
Opening the book.
November 7, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
hypervisible.blacksky.app
Student surveillance companies cash in on the ai grift by promising schools and parents their tech will keep students safe from the harms of ai.
Chatbots Are Sparking a New Era of Student Surveillance
As US educators embrace AI in the classroom, firms are selling software to flag mentions of self-harm, raising concerns over privacy and control.
www.bloomberg.com
November 7, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
restofworld.org
“Some of the easiest, most lucrative places for TikTok to make money were wealthy markets like the Gulf that were unburdened by Western norms about privacy, human rights, and democratic self-governance.”
https://restofworld.org/2025/tiktok-saudi-uae-investors-us-ban/
How TikTok cozied up to wealthy investors in Saudi Arabia and the UAE
In her new book, Every Screen on the Planet: The War Over TikTok, journalist Emily Baker-White charts the Chinese app’s rise to becoming a global juggernaut. Here is an excerpt on the company’s courts...
restofworld.org
November 7, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
moiradonegan.bsky.social
Should women be hated as witches or patronized as overgrown children? The paper of record debates the two available options.
November 6, 2025 at 9:49 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
nytimes.com
A.I. is already raising concerns for its ability to mimic real voices in service of scams or to produce deepfake pornography without a subject’s permission. Now, the technology is also being used for violent threats — priming them to maximize fear by making them far more personalized.
A.I. Is Making Death Threats Way More Realistic
Online harassers are generating images and sounds that simulate their victims in violent situations.
nyti.ms
October 31, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
jameeljaffer.bsky.social
They don’t even know who they’re killing. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/u...
October 30, 2025 at 11:41 PM
thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social
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.
October 27, 2025 at 6:57 PM
thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social
New publication alert: "Intersectionality and the problems of using artificial intelligence to address online gender-based violence and gendered disinformation"

This is a chapter in the "Routledge Handbook of Social Media, Law and Society" edited by @kimbarker.bsky.social and Prof. Olga Jurasz.
Cover image for the book "Routledge Handbook of Social Media, Law and Society" Social media companies use automated content moderation techniques to address harmful content on their platforms such as online gender-based violence and gendered mis- and disinformation. While these platforms may recognize that it is important to assess users based on different identities, they do not acknowledge the reality of intersectionality, nor the ways in which their use of AI (artificial intelligence) to target users and recommend content based on inferences about users can propagate multiple forms of oppression. Thus, their AI-driven solutions and interventions may in fact exacerbate the problem. The chapter examines this problem and offers recommendations for how social media companies can incorporate an intersectional lens into their automated content moderation systems and how policymakers can support that approach.
October 18, 2025 at 9:08 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
mikestabile.bsky.social
Discord confirms that government IDs used for age-verification were compromised in a hack with a vendor.

Who could have predicted?

Oh, right.
Discord users suffer the first high-profile age-verification hack – and it's unlikely to be the last
Critics of age verification laws warned this was inevitable
www.tomsguide.com
October 6, 2025 at 4:43 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
datasociety.bsky.social
“The notion of AI personhood is a marketing exercise and a legal maneuver that I don’t think we should buy into,” says D&S researcher @cariatida.bsky.social. “Tilly is not an actress any more than, like, Sid the sloth from the ‘Ice Age’ movies is an actor.” www.huffpost.com/entry/ai-act...
Experts Warn This Real-World Effect Is The Most Unsettling Thing About 'AI Actor' Tilly
This Hollywood newcomer has a long list of haters already.
www.huffpost.com
October 6, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
hypervisible.blacksky.app
Sick burn. finance.yahoo.com/news/22-old-...
Critics see something different. Suresh Venkatasubramanian, director of the Center for Technological Responsibility, Reimagination, and Redesign at Brown University, said that Friend is clearly an example of a frothy AI company, but that it also bore a “pernicious” resemblance to a mostly forgotten early-20th-century fad: “radium necklaces.”

When Marie Curie’s new glowing discovery first hit the market, jewelers embedded radium in pendants and bracelets and sold them as chic wellness accessories—until decades later, people started dying of cancer.

“I look at Friend and I think, ‘Are we making the same mistake?’” Venkatasubramanian told Fortune. “We’re rushing these intimacy machines into people’s lives with no evidence they’re safe, or even helpful.”
October 3, 2025 at 9:14 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
daphnek.bsky.social
Another lesson in real world jawboning. DOJ pressures one company (Apple) into compliance. The next company (Google) also complies with no direct DOJ contact at all.

The company whose Maps app tells me where the highway patrol is (thx!) won't let scared and vulnerable people share ICE location.
October 3, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
hypervisible.blacksky.app
I’m having a hard time understanding how offering people the option of making deepfakes of each other is attractive or sustainable, but there’s also a racialized and gendered piece of this that’s mostly ignored. Sam Altman is at no risk for the proliferation of fake videos depicting him doing crime.
I’ve fallen into Sora’s slippery slop
AI Altmans as far as the eye can see.
www.theverge.com
October 3, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
couts.bsky.social
NEW: ICE is planning to hire a team of nearly 30 people to surveil social media 24/7, build dossiers on people, and flag them for arrest and deportation. @dell.bsky.social has the scoop: www.wired.com/story/ice-so...
ICE Wants to Build Out a 24/7 Social Media Surveillance Team
Documents show ICE plans to hire dozens of contractors to scan X, Facebook, TikTok, and other platforms to target people for deportation.
www.wired.com
October 3, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
jameeljaffer.bsky.social
Just noting that a university that signed this compact would be agreeing to gut clinics and institutes like, say, the Knight Institute, whose mandate is to promote free speech and press freedom. What would it even mean for us to be “neutral”?
October 2, 2025 at 7:01 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
molly.wiki
New research from AWU/CWU/Techquity on AI data workers in North America. “[L]ow paid people who are not even treated as humans [are] making the 1 billion dollar, trillion dollar AI systems that are supposed to lead our entire society and civilization into the future.”
cwa-union.org/ghost-worker...
We identify four broad themes that should concern policymakers: Workers struggle to make ends meet. 86% of surveyed workers worry about meeting their financial responsibilities, and 25% of respondents rely on public assistance, primarily food assistance and Medicaid. Nearly two-thirds of respondents (66%) report spending at least three hours weekly sitting at their computers waiting for tasks to be available, and 26% report spending more than eight hours waiting for tasks. Only 30% of respondents reported that they are paid for the time when no tasks are available. Workers reported a median hourly wage of $15 and a median workweek of 29 hours of paid time, which equates to annual earnings of $22,620. Workers perform critical, skilled work but are increasingly hamstrung by lack of control over the work process, which results in lower work output and, in turn, higher-risk AI systems. More than half of the workers who are assigned an average estimated time (AET) to complete a task felt that AETs are often not long enough to complete the task accurately. 87% of respondents report they are regularly assigned tasks for which they are not adequately trained. With limited or no access to mental health benefits, workers are unable to safeguard themselves even as they act as a first line of defense, protecting millions of people from harmful content and imperfect AI systems. Only 23% of surveyed workers are covered by health insurance from their employer. Deeply involved in every aspect of building AI systems, workers recognize the wide range of risks that these systems pose to themselves and to society at large. Fifty-two percent of surveyed workers believe they are training AI to replace other workers’ jobs, and 36% believe they are training AI to replace their own jobs. 74% were concerned about AI’s contribution to the spread of disinformation, 54% concerned about surveillance, and 47% concerned about the use of AI to suppress free speech, among other issues.
October 2, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
aliyabhatia.bsky.social
The U.S. Admin is engaging in "data theater" and in doing so they're joining a dubious cadre of autocrats around the world who are doing the same.

Read @sydneysaubestre.bsky.social @premmtrivedi.bsky.social at @opentechinstitute.bsky.social in @foreignpolicy.com:
foreignpolicy.com/2025/09/22/u...
When U.S. Data Lies, the World Listens
The Trump administration’s manipulation of statistics is exporting uncertainty into the international system.
foreignpolicy.com
October 2, 2025 at 3:57 PM
thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social
#TechPromCDT is back this October! It’s a night of connection, conversation, and celebration of 30+ years of tech policy. Can’t wait to see this incredible community come together again.
Oct 23 | 📍 The LINE DC
@cdt.org

cdt.org/event/2025-t...
October 2, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
rude1.blacksky.team
Our new, rebranded website is live. 🚀

🤓: and, look at that -- it's federated blackskyweb.xyz/.well-known/...
Build Community Online with Decentralized Tools | Blacksky
Decentralized tools to build community online. The intercommunal net where communities govern, pool funds and stay safe on their own terms.
blackskyweb.xyz
October 1, 2025 at 4:11 PM