Ryan McGrady

@antisomniac
102 Followers
156 Following
110 Posts
The internet, YouTube, Wikipedia, NYC, birds, media... Researcher at UMass Amherst Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure, Media Cloud.
rhododendrites.com
ResearcherUMass Amherst, Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure, Media Cloud
VolunteerWikipedia, Wikimedia NYC
AntisomniacHere, BlueSky
RhododendritesWikipedia, Instagram, Threads
Ryan McGradyNov 21
Talked with Marketplace Tech @marketplaceapm about Wikipedia and Grokipedia for yesterday morning's show. (related to the @techpolicy.press article). https://www.marketplace.org/episode/2025/11/20/what-makes-grokipedia-different-from-wikipedia
The difference between Grokipedia and Wikipedia

While Wikipedia strives to be transparent about its articles' authors and the changes it makes, Grokipedia is a black box of answers generated by xAI's chatbot Grok, said Ryan McGrady.

Ryan McGradyNov 9
Ethan ZuckermanNov 3
Friend and colleague Ryan McGrady has an excellent piece in Tech Policy Press on Grokipedia. Rather than excoriating the new project for Elon worship (true, but hardly interesting), he looks into how Grokipedia redefines sources for encyclopedic knowledge: https://www.techpolicy.press/with-grokipedia-topdown-control-of-knowledge-is-new-again/
With Grokipedia, Top-Down Control of Knowledge Is New Again | TechPolicy.Press

Ryan McGrady asks, who is Grokipedia for, other than its owner?

Tech Policy Press
Ryan McGradyNov 5
J. Nathan Matias 🦣Nov 5

How can we know if a law or policy has chilled people’s free expression? Can we use science to find out? And would courts pay attention?

I'm very excited to be speaking on Wednesday December 10 alongside my dear friend and colleague Jon Penney at the @knightcolumbia, in conversation with @kgb

The event is online, so do join us!

https://knightcolumbia.org/events/the-science-of-chilling-effects

The Science of Chilling Effects

Knight First Amendment Institute
Ryan McGradyNov 3

I have a piece in
@techpolicy.press today: With Grokipedia, Top-Down Control of Knowledge Is New Again

Trying to consider the nature of the project and its vision of neutrality vs. @wikipedia 's (without getting into e.g. article comparisons).

https://www.techpolicy.press/with-grokipedia-topdown-control-of-knowledge-is-new-again/

With Grokipedia, Top-Down Control of Knowledge Is New Again | TechPolicy.Press

Ryan McGrady asks, who is Grokipedia for, other than its owner?

Tech Policy Press
Ryan McGradyOct 24

Recap of #WikiConferenceNA: Gun, Community, Leadership, Permission.

https://rhododendrites.com/posts/WikiConference-2025.html

It's too long for a recap, but I'm giving myself a pass on this one.

WikiConference North America 2025 Recap: Gun, Community, Leadership, Permission - Rhododendrites

I like the internet

Ryan McGradyOct 23
New short paper on "The Ethics of Accidental Vlogs" in M/C Journal today, written with my @iDPI_UMass colleague Harshita Snehi. Accidental vlogs as in publicly visible videos for private/small audiences (esp. common in Hindi YouTube). https://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/3201
The Ethics of Accidental Vlogs | M/C Journal

Ryan McGradyOct 23
Here I am, posting to both bluesky and mastodon at the same time via Gobo, which also lets me organize a combined feed. (see previous post/toot)
Ryan McGradyOct 23
Critical discourse about social media frequently emphasizes the role (& opacity) of recommendation/filtering systems. My @iDPI_UMass colleague Spencer Lane is developing a "loyal client" called Gobo that aggregates your social media feeds & gives you control over ordering, filtering, etc. He needs your help! If you'd be interested in such a tool, please help Spencer with this user survey! https://forms.gle/XAWgANLYRWKMjvtr8
Gobo Lens Study Survey

Google Docs
Ryan McGradyOct 17
At wikiconference in NYC, a man wearing a "non-offending pedophile" sign pulled a gun on stage during the keynote, [apparent motivation redacted on request while investigation is ongoing]. He was disarmed by hero Wikipedians @Pharos and @fuzheado and arrested with no shots fired. As a reminder this event has a similarly aggrieved user call in a bomb threat.
Show threadRyan McGradyAug 13, 2025

View distribution more unequal, but with more liking of low-view videos.

We suspect these differences are due, in some part, to the way the internet has been adopted in India and YouTube's inheritance of the country's rich TikTok culture when that app was banned in 2020. Currently investigating these suspicions with Harshita Snehi in a big qualitative project. More soon.

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