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Lara Putnam

@laraputnam.bsky.social
2K followers 330 following 333 posts

Historian. Mom. Knocks on doors and talks politics. www.history.pitt.edu/people/lara-pu…

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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Some big feeling in the group chat tonight among the Costa Rican contingent, aka my adult children...
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Recent turnaround in PA voter reg trends, after 6 long years of GOP gains & Dem losses (slowed only by brief post-Dobbs Dem surge in summer 2022) is quite striking
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Sure seems like lots of people want to vote for Democrats in PA's upcoming primary 👀
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Jessica Winter @winterjessica.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
I attempted a unified theory of the Wine Mom, though I'm still not entirely sure I know who she is www.newyorker.com/culture/prog...
newyorker.com
The Political Power of the Wine Mom
The “wine mom” label has become a useful shorthand for a politically activated and well-organized liberal cohort, and the results of the upcoming midterm elections may hinge on this otherwise undefine...
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Pitt World History Center @whcpitt.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
Can't wait for this panel between @laraputnam.bsky.social @anetv.bsky.social and Zachary Horton next Wednesday, March 25 at noon! If you are a historian, writer, or just interested in what our evolving relationship with AI looks like down the road, you don't want to miss this!
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
You don't think a book review can be must-read for people just trying to make political change? This one is. @daschloz.bsky.social spells out the vexed underlying dilemma of democratic (& Democratic) politics in a world where increasingly "the choirs & brass bands reach only into the educated base."
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
New numbers: In the month of October, net voter registration trends turned positive for Dems in Pennsylvania. Unprecedently [in recent memory], Dem gains have outpaced Republicans every single month since then
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
Take this fwiw, but the last month of partisan voter registration shifts in Pennsylvania have looked better for Dems than any month in recent memory🤷‍♀️
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
More reporting on more tragedies created by smartphones with cameras in children's hands www.cbc.ca/news/marketp...
cbc.ca
Sextorters are targeting young boys online — and flaunting how rich the scam is making them | CBC News
There's a network of overseas scammers targeting and blackmailing teens, and in some cases driving them to suicide within hours of falling into a trap known as sextortion. CBC's Marketplace created fake social media profiles to investigate the business behind the blackmail.
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
Ok, big reveal: Allegheny, Montco, Chester, Delco, Cumberland, Dauphin, Northampton, Lancaster, Erie, Centre, & Montour counties are the only counties in PA where Kamala Harris improved on Hilary Clinton's net vote totals
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 03/08/2025
I am deep in the weeds, working on a thing, so please join me in being obsessed with this #PAelection fun fact. What do Allegheny, Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, Cumberland, Dauphin, Northampton, Lancaster, Erie, Centre, & Montour counties have in common, & in that order?
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 03/08/2025
The is a technical social science term for what @adambonica.bsky.social has laid bare here, and that is "absolutely fcking insane" Seriously. Read and weep.
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
I participated in an event about the upcoming judicial races, & two nice people came up afterward & specifically asked me to post more on Bluesky 😅. I live to serve, so here is one quick PA judicial fun fact: In Nov 2021, 70,000 of the people who cast ballots in Philly DECLINED to vote on retentions
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
Working on a new article about online harms to children & intl human rights w/@jenatmartin.bsky.social so I jumped over to Fb to see if there'd been improvement & immediately found these in a 17k public group I reported on months ago with @justinhendrix.bsky.social how's your dystopian morning going
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
Always worth reading @antoniascatton.bsky.social for clear eyed guidance about how to map communication to strategic goals
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
It's understandably not the SWPA election result getting headlines this week, but: the continued Democratic rise (and stark GOP decline) in Pittsburgh's once rock-ribbed Republican northern suburbs is remarkable
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
In honor of tomorrow's election a few charts fr Pittsburgh & surrounds. First, the big picture: there are 31,000 fewer registered Dems in Allegheny County today than 4 ys ago. There are 2,000 more Republicans & 10,000 more Indep/3rd party (who cannot vote in tomorrow's primaries)
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 04/05/2025
I interrupt your regularly scheduled doom about all things Democratic Party to report that Something is Happening in Pennsylvania
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
Meanwhile... worrying about real-world harms to kids from online interactions got me into a long series of conversations with the brilliant @jenatmartin.bsky.social that ended us up here yjolt.org/everything-n...
yjolt.org
Everything New is Old Again: The Coming Metaverse, Platforms as Premises, and Addressing Harms that Occur Behind the Veil of Scale | Yale Journal of Law & Technology
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
Coming up tonight: Not-very-🔥 takes from me about electoral trends & shifts that shaped 2024 in PA, and what that might mean looking forward www.mobilize.us/promotethevo...
mobilize.us
WTF HAPPENED?!? The '24 Election and handling misinformation with Dr. Lara Putnam · Promote the Vote PA
Join us on Monday, April 21 from 7:00 to 8:00 pm ET for WTF HAPPENED?!? with Dr. Lara Putnam, who will discuss the '24 election and how to combat misinformation in 2025. Dr. Lara Putnam is a Professo...
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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
To Pennsylvanians here: Do you have local school board races next month that you care about and/think are important? There are literally hundreds of races in May, and hard to keep up. I got some very helpful answers when I asked about Texas yesterday, so I'm switching gears to Pennsylvania!
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Union County Democrats @uniondemspa.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
Union County Dems are running 29 candidates for municipal office this year, a 190% increase from 2023.
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
Another day, another invaluably unvarnished post about public opinion & electoral math from @charlotteeffect.bsky.social .
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
I hear there are folks on here muttering about protests being cringe... or "resistance Libs" likewise (or middle aged women in general maybe?)... so reupping this descriptive piece about how the 2017 protests shaped local social networks & from there, elections washingtonmonthly.com/2019/07/12/h...
washingtonmonthly.com
How Today’s Anti-Trump Protests Will Shape the 2020 Election | Washington Monthly
Opposition to the president has fueled local movements that are strongest exactly where their electoral impact matters most.
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
Hands Off protest this afternoon in Pittsburgh was the largest I have personally attended in Pittsburgh, ever. I posted a bunch of clips over on the Other Site but will share at least a few highlights here?
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
A few weeks/lifetime ago I did an obsessively long thread re the new Bonica et al paper that examines the vote penalty paid by individual candidates for extremism & makes assertions [to my eye, ungrounded ones] about a potential broader turnout boost extremism might bring to the party as a whole.
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
I'm going to stake out the apparently-edgy-onhere position that the voter shifts described by David Shor here are real, & should be cause for genuinely difficult rethinking of strategies based on no-longer-accurate assumptions about the 'rising American electorate' www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Democrats Need to Face Why Trump Won
The Democratic pollster David Shor walks through what voter data reveals about the 2024 election — and how the American electorate is shifting.
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 16/03/2025
I am grateful that anyone at all is following me on here, & assume maybe most are interested in Dem grassroots activism—in which case I am going to reiterate that @charlotteeffect.bsky.social is must-read: including her recent commentary on this 👀 paper cauldronllc.substack.com/p/the-specte...
cauldronllc.substack.com
The Specter of “What About Turnout” Haunts The Literature
About that new Bonica et al paper on electoral penalties and moderation
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Dr. Chinasa T. Okolo @chinasa.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Really informative article from Lara Putnam in Tech Policy Press detailing how celebrity and TV show fan groups on Facebook are used to solicit and spread sexualized child content across Latin America. www.techpolicy.press/latin-americ...
techpolicy.press
Latin America’s Children at Risk on Facebook: Predators Stalk Children in Celebrity Fan Groups | TechPolicy.Press
Groups that center around popular celebrities present predators a chance to target children in Spanish language Facebook groups, writes Lara Putnam.
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Another must-read post from @charlotteeffect.bsky.social , working really hard to clear away comforting Dem-side narratives (like, "we just needed better GOTV" or "the base stayed home bc Harris ran too far to the right") so that urgent rethinking can begin cauldronllc.substack.com/p/the-19-mil...
cauldronllc.substack.com
The 19 million missing voter myth
Why there aren’t a population of untapped ex-Biden voters out there to be reached
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Possibly you did not have "Democratic Women of Fayette County’s monthly meeting breaks records with 98 enthusiastic attendees" on your Winter 2025 bingo card? Nor Democratic Women of [Trump+ 38] Fayette County becomes THE largest Democratic Federated Club in Pennsylvania 🤷‍♀️
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
This from @adamjentleson.bsky.social is very good & also points to an ancillary takeaway: leaders (elected or otherwise) who have a clear-eyed vision of what terrain they want Dems to be fighting on... need to step forward & create hands-on opportunities to channel energy towards *those* fights
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
200+ people rallied in support of Ukraine today outside the downtown Pittsburgh office of Senator Dave McCormick
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
New: Pablo Medina Uribe of @elclip.bsky.social & I spoke with @justinhendrix.bsky.social @techpolicypress.bsky.social about the persistence of child endangerment on Facebook; why Meta seems addicted to bad actors & their use cases; & the real-world harms Latin American NGOs are seeing on the ground
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
Yesterday in Trump+32 Butler County👀 "The planned protest started around noon & by 12:45 the crowd reached around 130 people chanting in support of the VA & the US Office of Personnel Management & against President Donald Trump, Elon Musk & the Department of Government Efficiency"
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
.@charlotteeffect.bsky.social should have a gazillion more followers over here: this is really valuable, clear-eyed work
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Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Professor Lara Putnam documents how Spanish-language Facebook groups centered around popular celebrities present predators a chance to target children. The analysis is published by Tech Policy Press, along with independent reports coordinated by the investigative journalism consortium EL CLIP.
buff.ly
Latin America’s Children at Risk on Facebook: Predators Stalk Children in Celebrity Fan Groups | TechPolicy.Press
Groups that center around popular celebrities present predators a chance to target children in Spanish language Facebook groups, writes Lara Putnam.
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Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
This was one of the craziest things I learned from Meta child safety staff -- after the "People You May know" algorithm, one of the dominant ways that gross dudes tried to meet young girls was by joining Taylor Swift fan clubs. So not just LatAm.
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Tech Transparency Project @ttp-updates.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
Meta pushed its platforms in Latin American with a "Free Basics" program, TTP's Katie Paul tells @techpolicypress.bsky.social. Predictably, the company didn't scale trust & safety. Now, @laraputnam.bsky.social & @elclip.bsky.social journalists reveal widespread child endangerment on Meta platforms.
techpolicy.press
Inocencia en Juego: An Investigation into Groups Targeting Children on Facebook | TechPolicy.Press
Tech Policy Press collaborated with Lara Putnam and the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (EL CLIP) to investigate child safety on Facebook.
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Tech Transparency Project @ttp-updates.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
Back in 2022, @laraputnam.bsky.social alerted Meta to public, Spanish-language FB groups designed to target children for sexual exploitation. Out in the open, users solicited sexual contact with children, alongside explicit cartoons and memes. When she reported the groups, Meta did nothing.
wired.com
Facebook Has a Child Predation Problem
The platform can be quicker at recommending groups built around child predation than it is to remove them.
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
I never meant to have a side job tracking child endangerment on Facebook. I thought basic guardrails must be working? But since 2021, I have repeatedly run into child luring out in the open in real time, & been unable to get Fb to act. New reporting from me today www.techpolicy.press/latin-americ...
techpolicy.press
Latin America’s Children at Risk on Facebook: Predators Stalk Children in Celebrity Fan Groups | TechPolicy.Press
Groups that center around popular celebrities present predators a chance to target children in Spanish language Facebook groups, writes Lara Putnam.
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Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
Tech Policy Press joins @elclip.bsky.social in exposing alarming patterns of child endangerment in Spanish-language #Facebook groups. The collaboration includes a report from @laraputnam.bsky.social documenting the groups and articles from Spanish-language news organizations across Latin America.
techpolicy.press
Inocencia en Juego: An Investigation into Groups Targeting Children on Facebook | TechPolicy.Press
Tech Policy Press collaborated with Lara Putnam and the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (EL CLIP) to investigate child safety on Facebook.
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Micah Sifry ❌👑 @msifry.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Some recommended reading from my friend @antoniascatton.bsky.social -- (for starters, stop calling it a coup when it's a crime spree) open.substack.com/pub/reframin...
open.substack.com
Restoring Sanity
We will prevail. We need to talk like it.
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
Theda Skocpol on what to learn from the first resistance, & where to now. Her suggestion for spreading persuasive, corrective information about "truth & consequences" builds on organic connection but focuses on outreach to those outside the bubble: good politics 101 newrepublic.com/article/1905...
newrepublic.com
How to Take Heart From What Really Worked in the First Resistance
Marches and lawsuits are fine, but the real wins over MAGA last time were powered by grassroots activists pushing from thousands of districts across the country.
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
I genuinely don't know how to think of pieces such as👇 that argue that [thing that actually happened, 2017-present] is the key to fightng Trump 2.0. At a minimum need some "necessary but not sufficient" caveats? Probably, should address limits/unintended consequences? newrepublic.com/article/1891...
newrepublic.com
The Future of the Democratic Party Lies Far From Washington
To restore the party’s fortunes, organizers should look to down-ticket races to build pressure against Trump—and create a new generation of leaders.
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Always read @daschloz.bsky.social & @samrosenfeld.bsky.social about political parties & the practice of politics. (This is joining a few other short & important arguments along similar lines from the past few weeks: I'll try to gather them below in a thread...)
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
"Any theory on the future of The Resistance™ depends on how you understood it to begin with." @rtraister.bsky.social looks out over a national panorama of organizations, actions, and impacts that look nothing like the caricatures (or engagement farmers) online
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Michael Caley @michaelcaley.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
people are writing about The Resistance but it seems like some of them aren't referencing @laraputnam.bsky.social's work, which means you can mostly ignore them the test of the actually-existing Resistance will be the stability of the institutions it's built www.nybooks.com/online/2024/...
nybooks.com
Pennsylvania’s Grassroots Revival | Lara Putnam
Tracy Wilson grew up in Luzerne Township, Pennsylvania, a cluster of unincorporated towns around which the Monongahela River loops as it winds its way
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 12/11/2024
Some initial observations: In 2024, not only did Kamala Harris hang on to Joe Biden's massive increase over Hilary Clinton's net vote gain in Allegheny County's whitest precincts: Harris improved on it, netting over 1,000 votes more than Biden in Allegheny County precincts that are 90% or more white
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Lara Putnam @laraputnam.bsky.social · 20/10/2024
New from me: Whatever happened to 'the Resistance'? Actually, it's continuing to reshape the face of the Democratic Party in communities across Pennsylvania, and to rebuild the possibilities of local democracy www.nybooks.com/online/2024/...
nybooks.com
Pennsylvania’s Grassroots Revival | Lara Putnam
Tracy Wilson grew up in Luzerne Township, Pennsylvania, a cluster of unincorporated towns around which the Monongahela River loops as it winds its way
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