UNC School of Information and Library Science (SILS) Associate Professor Zeynep Tufekci is joining The Atlantic as a contributing writer, editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg announced Sept. 23. In this role, Tufekci will write regularly for The Atlantic about the intersection of technology, politics, and society.

“Zeynep has an uncanny ability, through clear writing and clear thinking, to make the incomprehensible understandable, and to spot trends before most anyone else,” Goldberg said in a press release.

In addition to her appointment with SILS, Tufekci is a lead investigator with the newly established Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP) and a faculty associate at the Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. She was previously an Andrew Carnegie Fellow and a fellow at the Center for Information Technology Policy at the Princeton University.

A contributing opinion writer at The New York Times and columnist for Wired and Scientific American, Tufekci has become a go-to source for media outlets looking for insights on the impact of social media and the growing influence of machine algorithms. Her book, Twitter and Teargas: The Ecstatic, Fragile Politics of Networked Protest in the 21st Century (Yale 2018), examines the dynamics, strengths, and weaknesses of 21st century social movements.

Her most recent column for WIRED, “All I Ever Wanted Was a One-Trick Pony,” (Sept. 24), examines why so many of our digital tools are designed to distract us rather than assist us.

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