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Brandon Silverman

@brandonsilverman.bsky.social
1.5K followers 191 following 119 posts

working on something new. former ceo & co-founder of crowdtangle, policy advocate for open internet & transparency, 3x boy-dad, less frequent dog walker.

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Reposted by Brandon Silverman
The Coalition for Independent Technology Research @thecoalition.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
CITR just submitted a request to intervene on behalf of technology researchers in the X v. European Commission case to explain the importance of the DSA’s data access rules to the CJEU. (⅓) independenttechresearch.org/citr-members...
independenttechresearch.org
CITR Members Intervene in DSA Court Case to uphold Data Access for Public Interest Research - Coalition for Independent Technology Research
Members of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research today requested leave to intervene in X v. European Commission. X’s Digital Services Act violations have prevented researchers from using p...
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
Claude Code is so fun. Two random projects I did over the weekend: What do Super Bowl ads tell us about the economy: brandonsilverman77.github.io/superbowlads/ What values do we sing about during half-time? brandonsilverman77.github.io/halftime/ Spoiler alert: Bad Bunny was great.
brandonsilverman77.github.io
Super Bowl Ad Economy
What Super Bowl commercials tell us about the U.S. economy — from the Dot-Com Bubble to the AI Boom.
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
A few years ago I tried to build the RSS reader I always wanted: author-based and delivered over email. RSS was ultimately too unwieldy to make it super feasible...but LLMs have offically solved that. So, here's the newly revamped and souped up version! www.joinbyline.com
joinbyline.com
Byline - Follow the writers you love
Track your favorite journalists across every publication. One daily email with all their latest stories.
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Reposted by Brandon Silverman
Daphne Keller @daphnek.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
My second post about researchers’ rights to scrape data under DSA Article 40.12 is up! This is dense with legal arguments for researchers to use if they get sued. Or to show their lawyers before that. www.techpolicy.press/how-the-mean... verfassungsblog.de/dsa-fine-x-r...
techpolicy.press
How the Meaning of 'Publicly Accessible' Shapes Researcher Data Rights Under the DSA | TechPolicy.Press
Researchers eager to begin work under DSA Article 40(12) may be deterred by uncertainty about what data counts as 'publicly accessible,' writes Daphne Keller.
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 06/12/2025
Leaving this here...
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
👇👇👇👇
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Reposted by Brandon Silverman
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
EU has fined X $140m for breaking European laws and refusing to address that when warned. Likely Musk won't pay and the Trump regime will pressure EU, but if so, they should stand strong and ban the website. And oh the irony that this won't cover the UK, where Musk is stoking division and violence.
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
If you include the earlier Reuters deal, then 50% of the sourcing of U.S. news-related AI answers for Meta chatbots will come from outlets ostensibly trying to serve a broad, diverse national audience...and the other 50% come from explicitly, self-defining conservative outlets. Good times.
axios.com
Exclusive: Meta strikes multiple AI deals with news publishers
Meta's new partners include USA Today, People Inc., CNN, Fox News, The Daily Caller, Washington Examiner and Le Monde.
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
This is basically Shattered Glass but for academia? All the way down to creating fake company websites...https://www.wsj.com/economy/aidan-toner-rodgers-mit-ai-research-78753243?st=NGTDig&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
Just finished Brother's Karamazov for the first time. As Dostoevsky is to Tolstoy, Tolkien is to G.R.R. Martin?
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Reposted by Brandon Silverman
gwiddp.bsky.social @gwiddp.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
NEW REPORT 💻 @annalenhart.bsky.social and @brandonsilverman.bsky.social interviewed 18 high-profile social media figures about how they view privacy. Many policymakers assume that public data from prominent accounts involve lower expectations of privacy. Is that the case? Read here: bit.ly/4peorZB.
iddp.gwu.edu
Performing in Autonomy Theater | Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics (IDDP) | Columbian College of Arts & Sciences | The George Washington University
Balancing the needs of social media researchers with perspectives of high profile figures.
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
We live in a two-tiered system—where corporations & brands buy access to the data they need and public interest researchers are locked out. One customer representative candidly admitted: "Even when they added more restrictions on Facebook, we found a way to get more data."
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
Needless to say, strongly agree with @ebakerwhite.bsky.social in this op-ed in the Times this morning! www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Legislators Should Force Social Media Platforms to Tell the Truth
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
Same...but I went with Blood Meridian.
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
lol
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Reposted by Brandon Silverman
Daphne Keller @daphnek.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
This new report from @brandonsilverman.bsky.social and @naomishiffman.bsky.social is great. It documents numerous concrete cases in which platform transparency (or scraping-based research) has had significant real-world impact. iddp.gwu.edu/sites/g/file...
iddp.gwu.edu
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
Anyone know what video was actually played?
axios.com
Trump leans into widely disputed claims about "white genocide" in S. Africa
Trump played a controversial video to emphasize his claims about white Afrikaners facing racial violence.
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
Unsubscribe from campaign text messaging is obviously broken. We need a mechanism for more upstream unsubscribes...campaigns should have to tell you *where* they got your number and you should be able to remove yourself from the source list.
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Reposted by Brandon Silverman
Rebekah Tromble @rebekahtromble.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
The worst happened. We were DOGE’d. Our NSF funding is gone. So now there’s nothing stopping me from sharing Expert Voices Together, a crisis response system for US-based researchers and journalists facing harassment. It's a true passion project. 🧵 1/ expertvoicestogether.org
expertvoicestogether.org
© 2025 Expert Voices Together
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
My useless contribution to the Qatar plane news cycle is that people are severely underestimating the economics of private jet ownership.
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
Link to the full report here: iddp.gwu.edu/sites/g/file...
iddp.gwu.edu
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
Of course, the kicker to the entire paper is that most of the data sharing programs that empowered all these specific examples and the subsequent impact...are mostly completely shuttered.
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
We detail 20 case studies where transparency led to impact in four core areas: (1) impacting platform decision-making, (2) contributing to academic understanding of key issues, (3) helping shape government and regulatory actions, and (4) contributing to a more informed public.
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
This morning, @naomishiffman.bsky.social and I published a report that helps make the case for why online platform transparency is so important by looking at *specific, concrete case studies* where data sharing led to real-world impact. Link to the report and 🧵 with more details below!
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Reposted by Brandon Silverman
Aaron Ross Powell @aaronrosspowell.com · 23/04/2025
Looks like we finally found the censorship industrial complex. I'm sure the Twitter Files conspiracy theorists will be all over it any day now. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
nytimes.com
They Criticized Musk on X. Then Their Reach Collapsed.
Three users who disagreed with the site’s owner saw views for their posts plummet.
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
You can now specifically add citations!
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
👍
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Yes please!
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Yup! Just discovered that and reached out to them...otherwise, I'll definitely just link to it!
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Reposted by Brandon Silverman
patcurley.bsky.social @patcurley.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Just submitted my first suggestion. Super easy process and such a useful tracker.
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
Thanks for the bump @mmasnick.bsky.social! And whole thing started with a BlueSky post from @moskov.goodventures.org. Have had a ton of user submissions and just need to go through and approve them all now...
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Reposted by Brandon Silverman
A half-clever Tapir @amelia.codes · 22/04/2025
This site gets an A+ in design. It's simple, but effective. It's fast. The background isn't blindingly white. There is still strong contrast between the text and background. It looks good on desktop AND mobile.
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
Great call...working on it!
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
@moskov.goodventures.org
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
Updating! (Also, the submission form was down for a bit but is now working properly!)
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
On it!
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
All fixed now!
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
Ok, took a second but all fixed now. Sorry about that!
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
That shouldn't happen...checking now!
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
That means a lot, thank you!!
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
Great...will update!
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
Think the site is pretty much good to go at this point! trackingourinstitutions.com
trackingourinstitutions.com
Tracking Our Institutions
Which U.S. institutions are resisting pressure from the Trump administration—and which are capitulating?
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
Added a rating for mixed response...and made it more mobile friendly all around as well
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
I'm tempted to add a "mixed" rating and a "Media" category...otherwise, will keep tweaking design, and might add a FAQ as well...but throw out any other ideas if you have them!
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
Is there a good canonical article that we can point to as background for what's happening and why it's important to track this...I can try and look for one later tonight but curious if you had one in mind that stood out...
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Reposted by Brandon Silverman
Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
Nearly half of people currently detained by ICE/CBP have no criminal charges, yet some are being held in conditions that would be unacceptable in high-security prisons. Admin has eliminated oversight bodies ensured health/safety requirements are met www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
washingtonpost.com
Immigrants forced to sleep on floors at overwhelmed ICE detention centers
Some immigrant detention centers across the country are over capacity. The administration has asked for emergency contracts to add more facilities.
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
Nice...updated...although it seems to have been pursuing an equal balance of examples on each side again...
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
Still lots of improvements to make but making progress on everything: trackingourinstitutions.com
trackingourinstitutions.com
Explore which institutions are resisting — and which are capitulating.
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
Got the new url up and working and playing with design: trackingourinstitutions.com
trackingourinstitutions.com
Explore which institutions are resisting — and which are capitulating.
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Brandon Silverman @brandonsilverman.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
lol
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