#ucberkely

Congratulations to Dr. Lilly Irani and graduate student Dorothy Howard in being awarded a Sloan and Ford Foundation grant with collaborators at the UC Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS) and the University of Connecticut. Their project is called: "The Visible and Invisible Work of Maintaining Open Source Digital Infrastructure

""The one-year research project — The Visible and Invisible Work of Maintaining Open-Source Digital Infrastructure — will study these issues in various software projects, including software libraries, collaboration platforms, and discussion platforms that have come to be used as critical digital infrastructure. The researchers will conduct interviews with project maintainers and contributors from a wide variety of projects, as well as analyze projects’ code repositories and communication platforms. The goal of the research is to better understand what project maintainers do, the challenges they face, and how their work can be better supported and sustained. This research on the invisible work of maintenance will help maintainers, contributors, users, and funders better understand the complexities within such projects, helping set expectations, develop training programs, and formulate evaluations."

https://www.fordfoundation.org/ideas/equals-change-blog/posts/announcing-13m-in-funding-for-digital-infrastructure-research/

After last night, watching innocent men and young women being gang-beaten and tortured by mobs of individuals, there are ZERO arguments remaining that the left is anything other than a fascist mob at this point. It's not even incendiary to state this at this juncture. It's just fact. These attacks keep happening to combat 'fascism', but what is fascism to these mobs?

It's literally other people saying things they disagree with. There are no Trump supporters beating unarmed women. There are no Trump supporters desecrating/burning churches. There are no Trump supporters violently suppressing other people's ability to speak or gather. There are no Trump supporters trying to shut down online liberal forums/sites. All we're doing is stating a point of view that disagrees with these mobs.

The left reacts with the riots/terrorism you saw last night. That's their response to differing opinion. That's the definition of suppression, of fascism. It's akin to what civil rights activists faced decades ago; state sanctioned attacks (look at what Berkeley's mayor did), fire hoses, gang beatings.

Even moderate liberals are agreeing with the actions of these mobs, and using the excuse that it's ok because the bystanders being beaten are 'fascists'. I have people I have known for TWENTY years, that are liberal and somewhat moderate, and even they think that things like last nights events are ok. Their excuse is that those being hurt are 'nazis' or 'fascists'. Again, I ask for evidence of these claims, and it's that the people being savagely beat are associating with or are actually conservatives of any kind. Or that their words are 'hateful'. Or that they believe the United States is better than other countries.

These are everyday people that you may run into on the street, or work with, or interact with. Even they are ok with the violence that is happening, which tells you one thing, and everyone reading this needs to understand:

When the time comes, they too are capable of being enthusiastic participants in the violent suppression of those with dissenting opinion.”