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Caitlin Gilbert

@caitlingilbert.bsky.social

14K followers 750 following 580 posts

@washingtonpost.com data reporter👩🏻‍💻 neuroscience/genomics PhD 🧠 [email protected] ✉️ caitlingilbert.24 on signal @caitlingilbertdata on tiktok/ig 🎭⚽️🎮 + other intrusive thoughts https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/caitlin-gilbert/

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Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · Jan 28

NEW: @laurenweberhp.bsky.social + I analyzed over 400 of RFK Jr.'s appearances since 2020 and found that he has disparaged vaccines in at least 114 appearances, falsely linked vax to autism in 36, and argued that White + Black people should have separate vaccination schedules

wapo.st/4jwQS2R

RFK Jr. disparaged vaccines dozens of times in recent years and misled on race

A Post examination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s statements finds the candidate for the nation’s top health post has repeatedly disparaged vaccines, linking them to autism.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 40m

Thanks so much for featuring our reporting!

Reposted by Caitlin Gilbert

Brian Stelter @brianstelter.bsky.social · 8h

Today in Reliable Sources:

How TikTok hooks you; Ted Cruz's anti-censorship fight; creative public TV fundraiser; and much more: cnn.it/4nMYIr0

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Reposted by Caitlin Gilbert

Meghan Hoyer @meghanhoyer.bsky.social · 23h

So grateful to the news engineers, researchers, lawyers and technicians who helped guide us in the proper way to handle folks' personal data. It was a TREMENDOUS lift to deal with this much (15 million unique videos watched 50-some million times!) and to make sure no personal info was compromised

Aram Zucker-Scharff @chronotope.aramzs.xyz · 23h

I very rarely have direct contact on newsroom projects anymore, but this is cool because I did work with folks to help with the original collection protocol to make sure this information was handled and stored privately and wouldn't leave us with a re-identifiable dataset.

The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 23h

How does TikTok keep its millions of users scrolling, swiping and staring at their phones?

With readers' help, we collected data from more than 1,000 TikTok users to find out: https://wapo.st/4nC6Nyr

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Reposted by Caitlin Gilbert

Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 1d

🤳EXCLUSIVE: We analyzed real data from over 800 U.S. TikTok users to reveal how the app transforms casual users into power users.

Extremely proud of this one, over a year in the making w/ @richardsima.bsky.social Leslie Shapiro @asteckelberg.bsky.social @ence.bsky.social

wapo.st/4obueib

Here’s how TikTok ‘power users’ end up scrolling 4 hours a day or more

Washington Post reporters analyzed data from over 800 TikTok users to learn how the app turns people into power users, some of whom spend hours per day scrolling.

wapo.st

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Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 1d

I think that’s a fair take, but we asked users themselves about what they preferred too and landed on “power users” but we do use that term and “heavier users” interchangeably in the story itself as our neutral nomenclature.

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Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 1d

Thanks so much, Scott, that means a lot!!

Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 1d

we avoided using the word "addicted" unless users themselves described themselves that way! we obviously could not establish that every one of these users had an actual addiction to the app without some sort of clinical review. "Power users" was our name for the heaviest-watch-time cohort of users.

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Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 1d

We were sick of speculation. So thanks to the 1,100 people who shared their data with us, we were able to show how TikTok keeps users hooked on the app. Over just 5 months, users appeared to use the app more compulsively.

Stay tuned for more stories off of this incredible dataset!

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Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 1d

TikTok is massive, fragmented and opaque: millions of Americans are pulled into a nearly infinite variety of niche corners by a recommendation system that we don’t know much about, making it difficult to understand how the constant scroll affects real people.

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Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 1d

This story follows our unprecedented collab with our audience to build a database of 15 million TikTok videos and associated metadata from over a thousand users’ watch histories.

Read more about how my incredible colleagues and I did this here: www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

We teamed up with our audience to measure TikTok’s unmistakable draw

In a unique experiment, The Washington Post collected more than 1,100 TikTok users’ data so it could analyze how the social media platform’s algorithm worked.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 1d

After 5 months, both groups of users were spending less time on each video before swiping to the next one, an indication that scrolling on TikTok was becoming an automatic or habitual behavior.

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Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 1d

More casual users also opened the app twice as often per day by September of last year, and power users continued to open the app about 20 times per day.

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Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 1d

We measured three metrics: daily watch time, app opens, and time to swipe to next video. For users who were spending about a half hour a day on the app in April 2024, watch time more than doubled 5 months later, sometimes even quadrupling. Heavier users continued to spend over 4 hrs a day on TikTok.

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Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 1d

Here’s how TikTok ‘power users’ end up scrolling 4 hours a day or more

Washington Post reporters analyzed data from over 800 TikTok users to learn how the app turns people into power users, some of whom spend hours per day scrolling.

wapo.st

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Reposted by Caitlin Gilbert

Meghan Hoyer @meghanhoyer.bsky.social · 2d

Taxpayers will spend $193 billion this year to compensate 6.9 million disabled veterans on the presumption that their ability to work is impaired. Yet we found many claims are for minor afflictions like hair loss, acne + varicose veins. By Craig Whitlock, Lisa Rein & @caitlingilbert.bsky.social:

How some veterans exploit $193 billion VA program, due to lax controls

The Department of Veterans Affairs spends billions on dubious and even fraudulent disabilities benefits. Meanwhile, some deserving cases wait.

wapo.st

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Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 2d

thank you! stay tuned for the next few stories coming this week and next

Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 2d

About 556,000 veterans receive disability benefits for eczema, 332,000 for hemorrhoids, 110,000 for benign skin growths, 81,000 for acne and 74,000 for varicose veins, the most recently available figures from VA show. Payouts for such mundane conditions collectively cost billions of dollars a year.

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Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 2d

For a program that is intended to compensate for lost earnings potential from service-sustained injuries, the biggest increases in disability ratings are for prime-age, fully-employed vets. Roughly 1 in 60 disabled vets reported an income of $250,000 or higher in 2023.

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Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 2d

The average number of disabilities per vet has grown from under 3 to about 7—it’s now common for vets to file for 20 or more disabilities. Taxpayers will spend about $193bn this year to compensate about 6.9 million disabled vets.

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Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 2d

EXCLUSIVE: Veterans are swamping the VA with dubious disability claims, including cases of fraud totaling tens of millions of dollars. 100% disability is now the most common rating.

our first story in our series on the VA’s disability program, with Craig Whitlock and Lisa Rein:

wapo.st/3VN0qw9

How some veterans exploit $193 billion VA program, due to lax controls

The Department of Veterans Affairs spends billions on dubious and even fraudulent disabilities benefits. Meanwhile, some deserving cases wait.

wapo.st

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Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 3d

have two totally different huge investigations publishing over the next couple of days and I’m five months pregnant so it’s time to re-up the hayao memes

Picture of Hayao Miyazaki with text that reads “A pain! A pain! Such a pain!”

A picture of Hayao Miyazaki looking tired and over everything with his hands on his head, eyes closed, with cigarette hanging out of mouth

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Reposted by Caitlin Gilbert

Dan Diamond @ddiamond.bsky.social · 15d

Trump’s attack on vaccines yesterday — delivered from the White House — “was the most dangerously irresponsible press conference in the realm of public health in American history” @pauloffit.bsky.social told us.

More on Trump’s false claims with @lenasun.bsky.social

‘Based on what I feel’: Trump escalates attack on childhood vaccines

Trump promoted long-debunked claims that vaccines can cause autism as he called for changes to the childhood immunization schedule sought by anti-vaccine activists.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Reposted by Caitlin Gilbert

Dan Diamond @ddiamond.bsky.social · 17d

New: inside Trump’s “very important” autism announcement for Monday

— new warnings on tylenol’s risk for pregnant women

— new endorsement of leucovorin’s potential as autism treatment

— new NIH data science initiatives underway

Trump administration set to tie Tylenol to autism risk, officials say

The Trump administration plans to tie Tylenol to autism risk while touting another drug, leucovorin, as a potential autism treatment.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Reposted by Caitlin Gilbert

Lauren Weber @laurenweberhp.bsky.social · 23d

Meet the parents skipping or delaying vaccination: Our @washingtonpost.com @kff.org poll found they are more likely to home-school their children, be White and very religious, identify as Republican or be under 35

www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

Why 1 in 6 U.S. parents are rejecting vaccine recommendations

A wide-ranging Washington Post-KFF poll details who tends to reject vaccine recommendations and their reasoning.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Reposted by Caitlin Gilbert

Scott Clement @sfcpoll.bsky.social · 23d

Just 6% of U.S. parents say they are "anti-vaccine" and 8%-13% believe RFK Jr.'s false vaccine claims. But larger shares "don't know" enough to reject false claims or have other doubts about childhood vaccines - 26% think the CDC recommends too many shots www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

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