Social & computer scientist who works alongside communities on science for a safer, fairer, more understanding Internet.
Founder, Citizens and Technology Lab · […]
[bridged from https://social.coop/@natematias on the fediverse by https://fed.brid.gy/ ]
J. Nathan Matias 🦣
Wiki In Africa is excited to support SICSS-Kenya 2026, hosted in Nairobi and led by Dr Amos Kipkorir Langat. sicss.io/2026/kenya/... #SICSSKENYA2026
Wiki In Africa
What does it mean to cultivate something that hundreds of people collectively decide is worth carrying into the future?
This month, I received tenure from Cornell University. The most common question I've been asked is "what will you do with it?"
This post, which I sketched before hearing the […]
What does it mean to cultivate something that hundreds of people collectively decide is worth carrying into the future?
This month, I received tenure from Cornell University. The most common question I've been asked is "what will you do with it?"
This post, which I sketched before hearing the […]
"At least one morning a week, Claudia typically finds herself on this corner, where she has been standing guard as a volunteer for the past six months. Her responsibilities are straightforward and precise: To keep an eye out for federal immigration officials." […]
social.coop
social.coop
> Sociocultural engineering research is being systematically attacked under the current US government, pressuring researchers to eliminate cultural inquiry from our work. These attacks present an existential crisis for HCI
> Marginalized HCI practitioners are at […]
[Original post on social.coop]
Tech firms are continuing their speed run through dystopian literature by recreating Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" except we don't get the utopia, and it's more than one child who suffers.
---
@anildash writes: "So, the biggest IPO in the history of the world has the […]
With #SICSSKenya2026 ongoing, @natematias & I wrote about our ongoing collab to bridge the @wikimediafoundation & comp. social sciences, with the help of @wikiafrica.bsky.social & Wikimedians from across Africa https://citizensandtech.org/2026/06/wikimedia-sicss-kickoff/
#wikipedia
How can scientists support the global movement for access to knowledge while also making discoveries about our social world?
This summer, teams of early career scholars with ties to Kenya, Nigeria and Burkina Faso will be linking up with the Wikimedia movement to imagine and develop new research on information, technology, and collective behavior on Wikipedia. These two-week sessions will build bridges between scholars and local Wikimedia movement leaders that we expect will lead to fruitful long-term collaborations of mutual benefit. CAT Lab has collaborated with Wikipedians on research across many languages and regions over the years, and we are excited to support the growth of even more collaborations!
Our summer project is the perfect team-up. Every year, the Summer Institutes in Computational Social Science support emerging leaders to grow their skills in quantitative research. The South Africa based nonprofit Wiki In Africa activates projects that are designed to ensure that African ways of knowing are valued, visible, and free for the world to access. CAT Lab, with funding from the Templeton World Charity Foundation, is investing in networks and curriculum to grow the movement of community-engaged research on technology and society. So when the Wikimedia Foundation, who host Wikipedia, announced a research fund to support transformative collaborations, we were excited to support the summer institutes and Wiki In Africa to apply for funding on a project to link scientists and regional Wikipedia leaders.
Thanks to the help of _Wiki In Africa_ , with funding from the Wikimedia Foundation,__ Wikipedians are joining in-person summer institutes or connecting to them virtually to share perspectives and expertise, and questions that matter to the movement. Groups discuss how Wikipedia, as one of the world’s largest open knowledge systems, can be used for research and shape the research projects that will be implemented at the summer institutes.
We at the CAT Lab are providing expertise on Wikipedia-based research, offering trainings on how to work with data from Wiki projects, and producing open access educational materials. Our overall goal is to increase the creativity and breadth of computational research about Wikipedia.
The first summer institute, at the African Institute for Capacity Development in Kenya, is already underway. The local Wikimedia Kenya User Group led a day of activities that included introductions to Wiki projects, the local community, and their rich expertise in the norms and ways of contributing, providing invaluable insights to the summer institute participants who are now planning research projects that will make use of those insights.
_The Opening Session at the Kenyan Summer Institute for Computational Social Science at the African Institute for Capacity Development. Photo by Bastian Greshake Tzovaras_
citizensandtech.org
The ActivityPub Trust & Safety Task Force is looking for a new Co-Lead (I'm stepping down because I'm leading the Social Web Working Group now).
Specifically we'd like someone with trust and safety experience! Doesn't have to be paid/professional experience (volunteer moderation workers […]
I've created a search on iNaturalist that lets you look at all of the different kinds of nests that ants construct.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?project_id=ant-architecture-the-nests-and-constructions-of-ants&verifiable=any&place_id=any
