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Sarah T Roberts, PhD

Sarah T Roberts, PhD

@ubiquity75.xyz

23K followers 2.2K following 13K posts

Professor, researcher, author.

Prez, Assoc of Internet Researchers (AOIR), synth lover, fan of many things, gay lady.

Wrote a book called Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media (YUP 19), and Meta stole it to train its LLM. .. more

Public Health 45%

Medicine 22%

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Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · Oct 22

A thread…

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · Oct 20

There are so many elements that have made his ascension possible: co-opted corporate media; social media’s unregulated environment; the overwhelm from the sheer number of misdeeds; coordinated foreign interference; destruction of K-12 education; racist grievance culture; unchecked gross inequity.

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 11h

This is a pretty unnerving phenomenon that many of us are seeing.

Jes Battis @jesbattis.bsky.social · 1d

An issue we're seeing at all levels of university is that many students are simply refusing to do *anything*. They aren't reading the syllabus, aren't following assignment guidelines, aren't engaging with material, ignoring deadlines. And this might seem like old news, but it truly has ramped up.

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 18h

Are you slow on the uptake?

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 18h

I’m actually trying to hold my workplace to account. My Faculty Association sued and won in court against the Feds, a huge victory for all people. We all work at the same place. The standing for the lawsuit was predicated on that fact.

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 18h

(“I, along with..are trying…”)

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 18h

Like, honestly…what? Ma’am, this is a Wendy’s.

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 18h

Okay, _thank you_, because I’m perplexed.

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 18h

I guess I’m not sure what constitutes “a position of risk” and myself vis-à-vis Northwestern, even if I did work there. But I certainly do that where I work, along with many other brave and vocal colleagues trying to hold administration’s feet right the fire.

Reposted by Sarah Roberts

Mþ. Kestrel (pronounced Myth) @kestrelsward.bsky.social · 18h

Not sure how publicly speaking out about the harms of a current authoritarian government while being a citizen subject to that government counts as cowardice, but we are in an age where words no longer mean things so. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 18h

Probably. Among other things I’ve overestimated, I suspect.

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 18h

Sometimes I post and think about things they are not directly in my backyard. I hope that’s okay with everyone.

(Wtf?)

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 19h

Oh, I saw that. Do I work at Northwestern? Not that I know of. Do I loudly work on direct pushback and organizing at my place of employ? Sure do.

I have no idea who that person is.

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 19h

Okay.

And let me know how congenial shared governance model just worked out at Northwestern.

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 19h

Some weirdo on this thread just “blocked me for being a coward.” Did anyone see that? Did they post something stupid

I have lot of bad traits upon which one could cast aspersions, but being a coward generally isn’t one…

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 21h

They’re certainly commanding massive salaries for doing nothing.
The new chancellor bestowed upon us at the end of the last academic year got a one-million-dollar raise. He is absent from campus most of the time. I think they don’t want their apple cart/gravy train interrupted.

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 21h

This is such an important take; capitulation and bowing to this extortion means that any research coming out of UCLA will have been tainted by the horrible smell of selling out.

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 21h

See.

This capitulation will do untold amounts of harm — by design.

Leslie @rbfchampion.bsky.social · 1d

*adds Northwestern to growing list of US universities whose research published in 2025 and after is now questionable*

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 1d

The New Yorker app did it to me. Any was I most likely doing when reading an article and my phone went to sleep for a dew minutes? Desiring to finish the article or just waiting for them to puke some more content my way?🧐

Reposted by Sarah Roberts

Leslie @rbfchampion.bsky.social · 1d

*adds Northwestern to growing list of US universities whose research published in 2025 and after is now questionable*

Reposted by Sarah Roberts

maraleia @maraleia.bsky.social · 1d

All colleges and universities should be faculty run. This is fucking insane.

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 1d

Material consequences for _themselves_?

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 1d

Well, I’m not sure I follow.

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 1d

Since administrators all over the country treat shared governance with faculty as a joke, they need to be reminded, it seems, much more clearly that faculty have a place in governance.

Faculty must unionize now.

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 1d

A thing for which there should have been zero negotiation, because there was nothing that needed fixing by this government. There should have been zero serious engagement. None. And if faculty had been listened to, there wouldn’t have been

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 1d

Here’s the apparent agreement. An agreement that had no reason to have been struck. A thing with no purpose other than to weaken and harm universities and higher education. A direct attack on an institution that can be life- and world-changing research. How can anyone sleep at night who is involved?

nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 1d

Leaderships’ inability to live up to their mandate demonstrates even more strikingly how important shared governance is. For one, there are typically world-class experts on these campuses who could help contextualize and offer input. But they don’t even think about us in that way.

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 1d

But those concepts elude them, because all of these schools are instead led by narrow-minded bureaucrats behaving as managers in a Taylorist style. They are so beyond their skills and knowledge that they probably wouldn’t even get that reference.

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 1d

My guess is that their fears actually small in many regards, like being forced to turn over all their emails and other materials for discovery. They’d rather screw us all than actually take it for the team and hold true to values and principles, which is what real leaders sign up for.

Reposted by Safiya U. Noble, Marc Lynch, Laurent Pech , and 5 more Safiya U. Noble, Marc Lynch, Laurent Pech, Caroline T. Schroeder, Anne Norton, Brian Keegan, Alfie Kohn, Greg Linden

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 1d

So apparently the administrators at Northwestern have caved to the extortionist demands of the Feds. Faculty voted 595-4 AGAINST this measure.

Reposted by Sarah Roberts

Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 1d

To put the Northwestern capitulation into human terms: $75 million is the equivalent of three head football coaches a year for three years.

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 1d

This is fantastic news, Alondra! He is very lucky to have you.