Mike Caulfield

@mikecaulfield.bsky.social

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Author: Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online (University of Chicago Press 2023).

Researcher, infolit/online rumor. Day job in academic tech.

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I agree with those here who point out that the breaking-news accounts never moved off of Twitter. Without the breaking news, the argumentative hot-take people have nothing to grab onto except meaningless circular firing squad stuff like who eats ketchup. So we get this endless corrosive nonsense.

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Mike Caulfield

Bruh they are paraphrasing not just fascists but THE fascists

This truly embarrassing garbage is why I unsubscribed from the NYT.

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Mike Caulfield

Quote posting is essential messageboard infrastructure and the actual fix is to make it so a quote post does not trigger alerts. The author of an article does not get a doorbell ring every you time to text the article with a comment to your group text. It’s the same thing!

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Mike Caulfield

Youtube Ads: get the most out of your seed corn. Level up your exam gloves Me: Aren't you supposed to like... know everything about me YTA: Wire money to Mexico. (Ad for a Chinese car, in Mandarin.) M: So much for the Panopticon. YTA: Here's why your drop-shipping store isn't working

I know people might not understand why I am researching what I am researching these days but I swear it is interesting mikecaulfield.substack.com/p/still-alive

Still Alivemikecaulfield.substack.com A brief guide to wondering who's still with us, using Google Trends

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Mike Caulfield

A lot of progressive accounts are spreading this claim and it is not true. I have verified the FEC records myself. They match the alleged gunman's street address.

If you're looking for something not on politics, I just wrote a post on what people search when they are wondering if someone is still alive -- whether that's Dr. Ruth or the character Glenn on The Walking Dead. mikecaulfield.substack.com/p/still-alive

Still Alivemikecaulfield.substack.com A brief guide to wondering who's still with us, using Google Trends

Goddamn we forget how big OutKast was in 2003/04 with the dueling singles.

More of my "how people Google TV" personal project -- here, a pattern that feels like it can't possibly be real but maybe is? Did the BSG Season 3 finale really increase searches of "Starbuck" by 23 MILLION? Or did I screw up my numbers.

I have checked this so many times, and I feel like it can't possibly be true. But I can't figure out what I'm missing, and I'm starting to think it's real. So let's put it out there and see what people think. Here's a chart of searches for the keyword Starbuck over time. See that spike?

STOP TALKING TO PSYCHOLOGISTS. Seriously. Or at least stop acting like this is primarily a question of belief. In the democratic discourse space it's about the social acceptability of belief and action, and how an erosion of discourse norms has corrupted the sense-making benefits of argument.

What bullshit. Ask me next time.

Even Disinformation Experts Don’t Know How to Stop Itwww.nytimes.com Researchers have learned plenty about misinformation and how it spreads. But they’re still struggling to figure out how to stop it.

About 30% of the federal workforce are veterans -- any massive replacement of that workforce with political flacks is a recipe for high levels of veteran unemployment. www.govexec.com/workforce/20...

Project 2025: The worst-case scenario for veteranswww.govexec.com COMMENTARY | "By dismantling key agencies and slashing federal jobs, Project 2025 risks undermining not only government efficiency but also the livelihoods of tens of thousands of veterans," writes on...

Well, I probably should have written up the search finding I presented here earlier in the week, but if it wasn't me I'm glad it was Philip. (One criticism though - people keep missing the BET awards impact which I think was substantial)

At this point, more people are searching for information about Project 2025 than are searching "dinner." www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Analysis | ‘Project 2025’ gets traction — thanks in part to Trumpwww.washingtonpost.com The former president’s denial of the outside policy effort helped bring new eyeballs to the issue.

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Mike Caulfield

Untold numbers of AI news sites posting fake quotes attributed to real people. I’m sure this is fine.

Well, this is a first...I got a Google alert for being quoted in a venue that I had never heard of. I never did an interview with them (their website has no contact info), the quote doesn't sound like me and has my old affiliation, and there is no proof that the author exists. Just more AI nonsense.

It's my day off and I'm doing my little "What do people search when they search about TV" project for fun and this aspect of the search listening tool I'm using is too real: is baltar a cylon, is boomer a cylon, is adama a cylon, is starbuck a cylon

One thing that has been retconned in election fraud rhetoric on the right is that *really* the concern was just these (false) *big patterns* and not the Ruby Freeman sort of stuff. So the idea is that *no* result can be certified, unless of course its a Republican victory.

Totally reliable social science here: no way you would get a 10% error rate on a survey, which you could easily validate by checking voter registration rolles

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Mike Caulfield

Hot new Quiet New Deal chart just dropped

WHY THE QUIET NEW DEAL MUST GET LOUDER Joe Biden deserves credit for reducing administrative burdens. And politicians will likely abandon making government work if he doesn't get it.

This is why we cannot let the Quiet New Deal stay so quieti-know-how-much-you-care.ghost.io If politicians don’t think they will get credit for reducing administrative burdens, they just won’t do it. What do 11 down-on-their-luck factories being retrofitted to build EVs have in comm...

Probably will be thinking of this all day.

Can't decide which explains more: 0% interest for 10 years, and the reasons for it; or the end of 0% interest for 2 years, and the reasons for it.

Seems bad

Was not prepared to have John Hodgman show up in my Battlestar Galactica rewatch but here he is

I had a brain glitch a few weeks ago where I couldn't remember my boss's first name for 30 seconds, the wrong name sprang into my head, I knew it was wrong, and it just took 30 seconds to clear it.

I call my son my brother's name ALL THE TIME. I am 45. I do not, as far as I know, have cognitive issues. I mix up my son+ husband's name 5x a day (they are so, so much alike). I regularly stumble when I lecture and I am an excellent+ professionally trained public speaker. Y'all are ableist AF.

Just to be clear why this is odd -- the narrative I see pundits pitch is that the public is obsessed with Biden's age and the Project 2025 story is not breaking through. These searches aren't perfect proxies but this complicates that a bit at least.

Weird case in point I put 'biden age' and 'project 2025' into Google Trends which isn't a perfect comparison but the result I got was completely unexpected

Agreed. It's even weirder, because whatever the right answer is, the average person's moral obligations don't shift. There's not really anything to figure out.

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Mike Caulfield

I want people to internalize just how bad it was before the ACA. You might claim that the ACA was "worse than nothing", but those who went through hell before know just how much better off we are now.

Lifetime caps: some insurers would say that once a person had run up a (lifetime) bill of $2M or so, they were no longer insurable, kicked forever to Medicaid and Medicare. NICU nurses told me abt pre-ACA kids who would hit their lifetime cap before their first breath of fresh air.

Part of my TV searches project, searches for Michael Emerson. The big spike is when he wins the Emmy in 2009, the more recent is when he shows up in Fallout. The beginning bit is when he was in LOST. To me, these sorts of searches provide insight into the "overlay" I've talked about.

The press keeps saying there's no hook to turn Project 2025 into a daily story. But if the below is true here's a hook... Trump denied knowing the people behind Project 2025 and here he is caught pledging to bring one into his admin. How is that not a breaking story?

Full quote from ex-ICE director Tom Homan: "Trump comes back in January... I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen. They ain’t seen shit yet. Wait until 2025.” Tonight in Florida Trump pledged to bring Homan back. Homan, BTW, is a listed Project 2025 contributor.

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Mike Caulfield

Reply to

Gerry Doyle

like if most readers believe that, I don't know, f-16s are powered by fairy dust after reading reams of my f-16 coverage I know 100 percent who I would blame for it and it isn't lockheed martin

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Mike Caulfield

and just fwiw I reject the idea that it isn't the media's job to inform. like that is our literal job. if people think things are not the way they actually are, that is by and large because we, the providers of information, haven't done well, right?

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Mike Caulfield

today marks the release of BURY YOUR GAYS which is a story that is very personal to my way. it is about the importance of art and creation and fandom and love. GET IT WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD. us.macmillan.com/books/978125... AND NOW id like to take a moment to talk on this book

I'm not saying that we've ended up at the best result, but it's actually hilarious that yesterday's cavalcade of news was a straight up repeat of the Great Consolidation Event of the 2020 primary and none of these genius pundits saw it coming.

I am not the first to make this point but if the whole premise is that the president is not competent, and the president outmaneuvers you....