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Kate Starbird

Kate Starbird

@katestarbird.bsky.social

93K followers 3K following 5K posts

Researcher of online rumors & disinformation. Former basketball player. Prof at University of Washington, HCDE. Co-founder of the UW Center for an Informed Public. Personal account: Views may not reflect those of my employer. .. more

Catherine Evelyn Starbird is an American computer scientist and former women's professional basketball player.

Source: Wikipedia

Communication & Media Studies 30%

Sociology 18%

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Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · Mar 27

On Feb 24, I gave a lecture at UW explaining what my team's decade-plus research on online rumors during crises reveals about the right wing "bullshit machine." Fittingly, a lightning strike impacted the original audio. Here's a fixed version w/ the full transcript: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjiG...

A Spotlight on Rumors

YouTube video by UW (University of Washington)

www.youtube.com

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 1h

Pro athletes promote a lot of questionable products. There's little social pressure to say no — their teammates, agents, and families all benefit from those same deals. But this gambling thing sucks. It's the next opioid epidemic & athletes who don't need the $ are pushing this to vulnerable people

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 1h

Aw! I grew up reading Kaye's poetry. And I'm overdue for a visit out to Jericho to see the old Starbird family farm there.

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 2h

So sad that your family had to endure this. Thank you for documenting your story!

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 7h

I wrote up this story about my mom's survival from polio and its connections to world history, family lore, & current events: katestarbird.substack.com/p/a-family-t...

We need to keep telling our stories of the world before vaccines — to prevent ourselves from having to live in a world after them.

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 8h

Same. All em-dashes, all the time.

Reposted by Kate Starbird

Sarah Hamburg @sarahrhamburg.bsky.social · 8h

My father also had polio as a child in Switzerland. His left arm was paralyzed — my grandmother basically invented a form of physical therapy she did with him, and he regained movement, but could never build muscle in that arm.

Reposted by Kate Starbird

Jacqueline B. @jaxsb.bsky.social · 16h

In 1947 my Mom became a fatherless child. Her mother was left with four children ten or under to raise, one an infant. My Mom was the eldest at age 10. Only her father got it. No one else in the family showed visible signs. She adored him and never got over the loss. Very cruel disease.

Reposted by Kate Starbird

skatuin.bsky.social @skatuin.bsky.social · 17h

My mom had a friend in elementary school (maybe 2nd or 3rd grade) in St Louis, MO who became a motherless child because of polio- maybe 1948 or ‘49

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 17h

Yes, that little CIA operation was dumber than dirt and contributes to legitimate distrust in vaccination programs around the world.

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 17h

I wrote this thread up into an article with a bit more context, links, some additional details, and a couple of clarifications: katestarbird.substack.com/p/a-family-t...

A Family Tree, Nearly Broken by Polio

As MAHA leaders call the polio vaccine a "fraud," an old family photo tells the story of the world before vaccines — and warns of the risk of forgetting.

katestarbird.substack.com

Reposted by Kate Starbird

Protect Democracy @protectdemocracy.org · 1d

Staying informed through trusted, nonpartisan sources is one of the most effective ways to combat election disinfo. For reliable, election-specific coverage, two nonprofit newsrooms stand out - @votebeat.org and @boltsmag.org.

Check out ways you can be part of the solution ⬇️
protdem.org/4yCiN88

An image with a banner titled "WHAT YOU CAN DO WEEK OF SEPT 14" at the top. Below, a phone displays a news app. The main section reads "Get election news you can trust." Additional text indicates "Time needed: Few minutes" and "Action type: Learn." A website is provided: "protdem.org/actions.

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 1d

That’s a hard one. So sad.

Reposted by Kate Starbird, Brooke Harrington

Ruth Ben-Ghiat @ruthbenghiat.bsky.social · 1d

In authoritarian states, “law” upholds lawlessness, and its first duty is to keep the leader safe from domestic or outside accountability processes. Judicial capture is the means, and the conversion of the law into what the leader and his enablers need it to be is the end.

Reposted by Kate Starbird

Sam Thomas @saminedmonton.bsky.social · 2d

Fortunately, some people documented that history. My Grandad wrote a book called "Polio '53" about his time in charge of the polio ward in Edmonton during the polio epidemic in Alberta. That book is the first thing I think about whenever anti-vaxxers show up and start spouting their nonsense.

Reposted by Kate Starbird

Dan On the Beach @danod.bsky.social · 2d

My mother had a good friend who became a quadriplegic in her late teens due to polio. She lived to her late 40s, cared for by her parents.

I can still remember how grateful my mother was when the vaccine was introduced. I was in the long line at school to get the vax.

Reposted by Kate Starbird

Madfishmonger @madfishmonger.bsky.social · 2d

Grandma went to school in the 30s. She told me once that some kids would just not show up at school one day and you'd never see them again. She couldn't conceive of why anyone would be be against vaccines at all. Dutifully had all her shots until she passed.

Reposted by Scott L. Greer, Kate Starbird

Mallory Harris, PhD @malar0ne.bsky.social · 2d

This is nuts AND...290 people attended in-person (with another 230 online).

Pathetic showing from a small & unpopular but very loud group that has hijacked American public health to our deep detriment.

Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · 2d

“On Thursday, Mr. Gorton said that “the success of the polio vaccine was a massive medical fraud” and that widespread vaccination was a “public health disaster.” He received a standing ovation…

Mr. Kennedy spoke next, linking arms with the group even as measles cases continue to rise”

RFK Jr. Assures Vaccine Skeptics They Have a ‘Friend at the White House’

The health secretary spoke at a conference featuring misinformation about vaccines, including a claim that the success of the polio vaccines was a “fraud.”

www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Kate Starbird

Papafox @papafox888.bsky.social · 2d

My mother was an elementary school teacher from 1932 to 1970. Every year at least one child would be diagnosed with polio. It was that common.

Let the statistics show the result of vaccination. By 1960, polio was effectively wiped out. The graph shows US polio cases 1910-2019

Reposted by Kate Starbird

Brian Spears @briankspears.bsky.social · 2d

My dad had polio when he was a kid and could have been considered lucky because he "only" came out of it with a withered left arm and a limp and a curved spine that caused him pain his entire life. Few things in my life anger me more than people downplaying the severity of these diseases.

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 2d

I’m so sorry. That sounds painful and distressing.

Reposted by Kate Starbird

MC020 @mashedparsnip.bsky.social · 2d

My mother had it too. Was in the hospital for a long time. Ultimately they took a piece of her hip bone and fused it in her ankle to keep it in a position that allowed her to walk again. All the muscles from her knee down were dead. Braces, surgeries, crutches, canes, she endured a lot of pain.

Reposted by Kate Starbird

4Speech @4speech.bsky.social · 2d

A young friend on my street ended up in an iron lung for life after getting polio. Parents were very scared b/c the way it was transmitted wasn't known. When the Saulk polio vaccine came out in 1955, families lined up around the block to get it, with NO hesitation.

Reposted by Kate Starbird

Crip Dyke @cripdyke.bsky.social · 2d

I wasn't going to write, bc others connections are more personal, but the reason I live in the city I live in is because of polio.

With my disabilities I need help. I can live alone, but need help a day or two a week. My BFF was doing that for me.

But then a few years ago her uncle needed help.

Reposted by Kate Starbird

Benjamin D Lane @slowtalking.bsky.social · 2d

My godmother had it as a child and recovered. She always had difficulty with it, and by the time she was 60 she was back in a wheelchair for life.

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 2d

The one piece of corroborating evidence is that they sent her to Hawaii (with her father) after she was mostly recovered, and the family recalls that the reason there was the figure out why she had survived. Which they later said was due to a gamma goblin shot she had a few months prior.

Reposted by Kate Starbird

altache.bsky.social @altache.bsky.social · 2d

Same here. My dad recovered in his teens, but post-polio syndrome has made him more immobile and prone to falls now.

Reposted by Kate Starbird

Rich Jackman @bldgcommunity.bsky.social · 2d

My aunt had polio as a child. She's lucky it didn't kill her, but she needed a wheelchair her entire life. She could drive with hand controls but kept an old Chevy Nova because installing the controls was so expensive. RFK Jr needs to be in prison.

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 2d

IDK. Her memory may not include survivors that didn’t get as sick? Medical care there (on a post-war military base) may have been less robust than other places, so survival rates could have been lower there? Statistical anomaly in small sample?

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 2d

That’s so sad. Each story is a family tragedy.

Reposted by Kate Starbird

Maisie Pubblechook @maisiepubblechook.bsky.social · 2d

Both of my parents, born in the 1920s-30s, were polio survivors, although my father wore a leg brace the rest of his life. His sister also survived, but late in life post-polio syndrome put her in a wheelchair. US children dying of polio is within living memory!