Advancing knowledge and practice wherever people interact with information and technology

Ian Castro (MIMS ’23) is using his data science skills to support the Eviction Research Network, a project seeking to create an organized database on how evictions are occurring in the United States. 

“We’ve seen that having this research impacts policy and that policymakers do care about this. So, the goal is to have this info available, so advocates on the ground running campaigns can cite this or so policymakers that care about this issue can help people who are at risk.” 

Tesla founder Elon Musk took over Twitter last month and installed himself as its chief executive officer. Then he laid off half the social media platform’s workforce. Amidst these changes, he’s discussed charging users $8 per month to be verified on the platform and putting Twitter behind a paywall.

In this Q&A, we spoke to Alex Hanna, a lecturer at UC Berkeley’s School of Information and director of research at Distributed AI Research Institute. Hanna explained how social media impacts our democracy; how Twitter has affected past U.S. elections; and how Musk’s most recent changes to the platform could affect the flow of disinformation moving forward.