https://twitter.com/davidshor/status/1396122982204919809
My quick 5 minute take from this is that they are basically phasing out actual data for simulations to alleviate privacy issues that aren't actually issues right now, which as a side effect by have a major negative impact on research / studies that depend on the ACS
Make sure you understand what microdata is.
Ordinarily the public does not have access to individual census forms. But the Census Bureau does provide access to a sample of those forms that have been anonymized. These may be used by researchers to provide analysis that the Census Bureau does not provide in its aggregate data.
For example, cinyc has produced maps based on ancestry. While the Census Bureau collects ancestry information from all persons, they don't report all ancestries, particularly for Asians. Someone might report their ancestry as Korean and German, but the Census Bureau won't report the Korean ancestry. Instead cinyc might have to estimate that information using race data.
If you are synthesizing persons of Korean and German ancestry you might place this "person" in a different location, and assign different other information.
Presumably, the Census Bureau will continue to produce aggregate ACS data.
The conference can be found here.
https://acsdatacommunity.prb.org/The website says that the videos of the conference will be placed online, but they don't appear to be there yet.