Ari Sen (@ArijitDSen) / X

Ari Sen

7,152 posts

Ari Sen

@ArijitDSen

Data Editor @sciam. Ironman. Tar Heel. Bojangles expert. Priors @CBSNews @dallasnews, AI @pulitzercenter @NBCNews @asheville @ucbsoj @unchussman

Washington DC

Joined March 2012

Pinned
Ari Sen
@ArijitDSen
Jan 21, 2025
Excited to announce that my work on Bleeding Out w/ @LaurenCaruba got third in the Phil Meyer Award! As someone who learned about Meyer on my first day of data journalism class at UNC, this is a huge honor for me.
Investigative Reporters & Editors
@IRE_NICAR
Jan 21, 2025
Replying to @IRE_NICAR
Congratulations to @dallasnews and @ExpressNews for earning the third place prize. “Bleeding Out” investigates why tens of thousands of injured Americans die from preventable bleeding each year. interactives.dallasnews.com/2023/bleeding-…
3.8K
Ari Sen
@ArijitDSen
Sep 20, 2022
THREAD: The biggest story of my life is finally out. Since 2019, I’ve been investigating a monitoring tool called Social Sentinel. They bill it as a way to help save students’ lives. I found it had another purpose — surveilling campus protests. bit.ly/3xxFWM7
Ari Sen
@ArijitDSen
Sep 20, 2022
Replying to @ArijitDSen
The company says its service isn’t a surveillance tool. But universities used it to track protests over a Confederate statue, student criticism of university officials and even a town hall with a US Senator.
Ari Sen
@ArijitDSen
Sep 20, 2022
Replying to @ArijitDSen
In emails to clients, company salespeople also boasted about “mitigating” and “forestalling” protests. They even created a whitepaper about how the service could be used in demonstrations.
Ari Sen
@ArijitDSen
Sep 20, 2022
Replying to @ArijitDSen
At least 37 colleges have used Social Sentinel since 2015. But emails sent by the company founder suggest it may be “hundreds.” None of them seem to have told students anything about the tool.
Ari Sen
@ArijitDSen
Sep 20, 2022
Replying to @ArijitDSen
In more recent messages to clients, the company has promoted a new feature — the ability to monitor student emails.
Ari Sen
@ArijitDSen
Sep 20, 2022
Replying to @ArijitDSen
A note about the paywall — I hope you’ll choose to support the DMN so you can read this story. Right now you can subscribe for only $1. But if you are a student who wants to read but can’t afford it, email me from your .edu account with your Venmo and I’ll cover you.
Ari Sen
@ArijitDSen
Sep 20, 2022
Replying to @ArijitDSen
To complete this investigation my reporting partner @DKproduxion and I interviewed dozens of people and acquired and reviewed more than 56,000 pages of documents. We are also making all of those documents public today: documentcloud.org/app?q=%2Bproje…
Ari Sen
@ArijitDSen
Dec 21, 2019
My final story for NBC News, and my first single byline. For this piece I went through a trove of documents I obtained from the university and found that UNC Police and NC SBI are using controversial tracking technology to monitor student social media.
UNC police used geofencing tech to monitor antiracism protestors
From nbcnews.com
Ari Sen
@ArijitDSen
Sep 20, 2022
Replying to @ArijitDSen
I also personally want to thank all of the people who mentored and inspired me first at UNC, then at NBC and finally Berkeley and the DMN. Without all of these folks this story would not be possible.
Ari Sen
@ArijitDSen
Sep 20, 2022
Replying to @ArijitDSen
We couldn’t have done all this without lots of help. First among the group are our editors/advisers @karisaking and @DavidBarstow.
Ari Sen
@ArijitDSen
Sep 20, 2022
Replying to @ArijitDSen
Our illustrator @MichaelHogueDMN deserves a special shout out for this incredibly cool and creepy illustration. And the folks on our audience team — @zairalperez @A_Slayton and @omgsiali — have also been working super hard to make sure people see the story.
Ari Sen
@ArijitDSen
Oct 20, 2022
A Trump-backed House candidate has been accused of excessive force nine times in his role as a cop. Accusers say he beat them with batons while handcuffed, kicked them in the groin and called them the N-word. My latest w/ @milesmoffeit:
Dallas officer running for Texas House faced nine brutality investigations early in career
From dallasnews.com
Ari Sen
@ArijitDSen
Sep 20, 2022
Replying to @ArijitDSen
Lots of others too — @paldhous, @suryamattu, @jonathanstray, @elenaconis, @brettvsimpson, @Hancock_JohnD, our classmates @ucbsoj in the investigative and narrative writing seminars, @bboying1275 and @MarinaWalkerG @pulitzercenter, @amy_hollyfield @KatriceRHardy & our lawyer Tom.