Robert is the Ontario Research Chair of Digital Governance for Social Justice at York University in Toronto, Canada. Previously, Robert held an endowed research chair at Louisiana Tech and a Fulbright Chair of Communication, Media, and Film at the University of Calgary, with approximately 30 articles in academic journals such as New Media & Society, Fibreculture, Social Media + Society, and Information, Communication & Society. Previous books include "Reverse Engineering Social Media," which won the Nancy Baym Book Award from the Association of Internet Researchers, as well as "Weaving the Dark Web " and "Social Engineering," published in 2022 by MIT Press.

Move Slowly and Build Bridges: Mastodon, the Fediverse, and the Struggle for Democratic Social Media is available from the MacEwan University Library.