To all the new BlueSky users joining lately — hello, I'm Samuel Mayworm! 👋 I'm a 1st year PhD student at the University of Michigan School of Information (UMSI) studying content moderation, folk theories, trans tech, online communities. Pleasure to meet you all 😄
www.mayworms.info 👀
So proud of @mayworms.info presenting our research on digital trans care and survival on community built online communities at @4sweb.bsky.social this morning. 🤩 Collab w/ Raksha Hungund, supported by co-advisor @haimson.bsky.social
This is a post of appreciation for my PhD advisees, some of my favorite collaborators! Here's a photo from our recent lab retreat.
From left to right: Denny Starks, Senami Kojah, me @mayworms.info, @hibbythach.com, Mel Monier, @lameiro.bsky.social
me watching dredd (2012) the first time: this is awesome
me watching dredd (2012) the second time: this is awesome
me watching dredd (2012) the third time: this is awesome
SSRC’s Just Tech calls for applications from researchers working at the intersection of technology and society for the 2027 Just Tech Fellowship, providing up to $60,000 to support research and creative practice. Applications due June 28.
Learn more: https://bit.ly/4u3YKxh
Thank you to everyone who has reached out so far! :D
Will be in touch soon; in the meantime, still encouraging folks who are interested in an interview to apply 🏳️⚧️
Hi all! For our current study, I am interviewing TBIPOC social media users about their online trans community support & care experiences.
Participants will be compensated $50 for a 1-hour Zoom interview!
Interested? Please fill out our eligibility form - thank you! forms.gle/qbTF1uQ6QSxb...
Hi all! For our current study, I am interviewing TBIPOC social media users about their online trans community support & care experiences.
Participants will be compensated $50 for a 1-hour Zoom interview!
Interested? Please fill out our eligibility form - thank you! forms.gle/qbTF1uQ6QSxb...
The 76ers and Pistons became the 14th and 15th teams to come back from being down 3-1 in a playoff series in NBA history.
This is also the first time with multiple 3-1 comebacks in a single playoff round.
Hard to explain how much that town was/remains shaped by Gerber (we had the Baby Food Festival every summer!).
The pictured water tower is in Grant, MI rather than Fremont (about 20 min away).
Serviced by the Fremont Area District Library.
The controversial weed killer Roundup is now being deployed in private and public forests at record rates.
We go inside the secret plan that helped make it possible.
This morning is the BIPOC Sovereignty and Care session at #CHI2026! My PhD advisee Denny Starks will be presenting two papers, both co-authored by @hibbythach.com, Aloe DeGuia, and Tawanna Dillahunt:
links to the two papers:
dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...
Go Denny Starks AGAIN! They just presented our paper (with Aloe Deguia, Tawanna Dillahunt, and @haimson.bsky.social), Navigating Safety and Technology: The Everyday Safety Labor of Transgender Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in the United States at #CHI2026 in Barcelona.
Go Denny Starks! They just presented our paper (with Aloe Deguia, Tawanna Dillahunt, and @haimson.bsky.social), Safety With Community: Technologies of Care, Connection, Collective Safety, and Mutual Aid for Transgender Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (TBIPOC) at #CHI2026 in Barcelona.
Looking forward to #CHI2026 coming up soon in Barcelona! Extremely proud of my PhD advisees Denny Starks and Senami Kojah whose first-authored papers were accepted 🤩
Here are our group's four papers this year:
Both the Wall Street Journal and The Information confirming that OpenAI is killing Sora - both the app and *access to its video-generating model for developers*. This is a huge move that suggests things are a bit desperate
www.wsj.com/tech/ai/open...www.theinformation.com/articles/ope...
Two weeks from today! @umichdigital.bsky.social
Interested in exploring the throughline between the 19th century's anti-immigration & eugenics movements and today's sprawling systems of surveillance & algorithmic discrimination?
Join the conversation at 3:00 PM [ET] on Tuesday, March 24th
Save the date! What do big tech, eugenics & your data trail have in common? Find out at our DSI Lecture Series, “Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech and Our Fight for an Independent Future” with Anita Chan.
🗓 Mar. 24, 3:00 PM
📍1010 Weiser Hall + Zoom
🔗https://myumi.ch/n1zqb
What's scary about this story is the surveillance it hints at. This trans woman had changed her name, legally, but chose not to change her gender marker. She was apparently flagged in the DMV system as trans and her license was invalidated under a law that supposedly only concerned gender markers.
This story, from @natezuke.bsky.social, is absolutely wild. A trans woman who never changed her gender marker was issued a letter invalidating her license. At the DMV they cut up her license, which had an "M" marker.
www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...
1. Numerous transgender people in Kansas are reporting that the state has sent them a letter demanding the immediate surrender of drivers licenses.
Those driving could be arrested, charged, and see privileges revoked.
Subscribe to support our journalism.
www.erininthemorning.com/p/kansas-sen...
Ho-lee Shit. This is phenomenally good news. Department of Education rolls back— for now— its attempts to destroy Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility initiatives. Keep an eye on them, of course, and watch for the hidden knife, always, but for now: Fantastic news.
BREAKING: The Department of Education has ended its directive that attempted to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in schools nationwide.
This is a victory for academic freedom and education equity.
“I don’t want to be in this place I want to go to my school.”
- 7 year old imprisoned by ICE for 70 days in a concentration camp in Texas.
Today, after @propublica.org published this story, the camp was raided to confiscate letters from the children.
www.propublica.org/article/ice-...
“When people are questioning their gender, digital ways to explore different appearances can be extremely important. Games often provide highly customizable avatars, which can help people in exploring how they might want to look.”
article by @faefyx.bsky.socialwww.lgbtqnation.com/2025/12/how-...
ICYMI: I introduced my Trans Bill of Rights with @markey.senate.gov — legislation to defend trans people across this country as Republicans continue to push anti-trans rhetoric and bills.
To our beloved trans community: We see you, we love you, and we will always stand with you.
What Would A Better YouTube Look Like?
An extended thought exercise about how to improve the platform, from multiple algorithms and video versioning to democratic platform control and municipal server capacity.
Watch, comment, share with your friends, and try to imagine what feels impossible.
1/ ProPublica collected handwritten letters in mid-January from children held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the same facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken.
Hundreds of kids are still detained.
We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵
Yesterday, five-year-old Liam and his dad Adrian were released from Dilley detention center. I picked them up last night and escorted them back to Minnesota this morning.
Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack.
The biggest risk in this moment is something sociologists call “symbolic compliance.”
That’s when an institution that is violating civil rights gives the public just enough symbolic victories that accountability efforts lose steam before there has been any meaningful change.
It’s notable that the president can go on TV and be a total gutter racist, and somehow this isn’t news in the slightest. Says a lot about the sickness of American society right now.
Trump: "They're paid agitators and insurrectionists. Nobody talks about the fact that $19 billion at a minimum is missing in Minnesota, given to a large degree by Somalians. They've taken it. Somalians. A lot of very low IQ people."
In 2026, we're launching an ambitious effort to track legacy news media's coverage of the trans community, with a focus on the words news outlets choose and how those are changing as right wing pressure threatens the independence of our press.
www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...
Located on the Muskegon River within the Manistee National Forest. One of countless former logging towns that pivoted to tourism decades later. Small, isolated, high poverty rate. Deeply evangelical, brutal place to be queer (yet there we were).
Serviced by the Newaygo Area District Library.
Worth noting that Newaygo’s population (in the city itself) is closer to 2400~500; I think this post’s estimates include surrounding townships (maybe including Croton?). The population went up between 2010-2020; my gut guess is that more commuters (who work in GR) moved in throughout the decade.
Google’s generative AI feature delivered inaccurate health information at the top of search results, potentially leading seriously ill patients to mistakenly conclude they are in good health, according to a recent investigation.