🚨New article with @andres-bernstein.bsky.social at @bjpir.bsky.social using @ess-survey.bsky.social. We show a positive association between different conspiracy beliefs and populist radical right attitudes, and how such associations can sometimes differ between Western and Central & Eastern Europe.

Conspiracy beliefs and populist radical right attitudes: A comparative European analysis - Andrés Bernstein, John Kenny, 2026

In this article, we examine the extent to which attitudes linked with the populist radical right are associated across Europe with belief in three different typ...

doi.org

FIFA World Peace Prize material right here. This is a sickening sentence for anyone to utter - let alone the sitting US President.

Very pleased to say that my PhD thesis “The Misinformation Game: The Effectiveness of Analogue Serious Games as an Inoculation Against Misinformation” is now available online. ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/10...

🚨New paper in Popular Communication! 🚨 "Inoculation theory as a design approach to game-based misinformation interventions: a review". (1/9)🧵🔽 dx.doi.org/10.1080/1540.... #InoculationTheory #misinformation #socpsyc #design #seriousgames #learning

Inoculation theory as a design approach to game-based misinformation interventions: a review

Misinformation has been demonstrated to pose a great risk to society, demanding action from policymakers and educators. Inoculation theory is a theory of resistance to influence, which in recent ye...

dx.doi.org

Out now with Wiley: The Handbook of Inoculation Theory and Practice, edited by Bobi Ivanov, Kimberly Parker, and me—the first handbook devoted entirely to inoculation theory. Grateful for my co-editors and contributors. #InoculationTheory www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Ha...

The Handbook of Inoculation Theory and Practice

<p><b>Provides an in-depth&nbsp;</b><b>account</b><b> of inoculation theory across multiple disciplines and applied contexts worldwide</b></p> <p>Inoculation theory has become one of the most influen...

wiley.com

Can confirm a recent anti-Trump post of mine there is blocked from viewing in the United States - my parents and US friends cannot see it when directly linked. Also, big anti Trump TikTok-ers have suddenly lost live viewership.

David Leavitt@davidleavitt.bsky.social · 6mo ago

#TikTok has begun censoring anti-Trump and anti-Ice content

New paper: CAST's Dr John Kenny & Prof Steve Fisher's journal article on "Europeans’ climate consciousness: increased yet more politicised" was published last month, using the European Social Survey from 2016-17 and 2020-22 📣 Read the paper 👇 doi.org/10.1080/0964... Key findings thread 🧵

If the EU and UK won’t stand up for international law in Venezuela, what exactly will they say or do when the US comes for Greenland?

Philip Mai@philipmai.com · 7mo ago

Idealism vs Reality... "European leaders appear torn in face of new world order after Venezuela attack. Leaders try to focus on what comes next, as backing for ejection of Maduro mingles uncomfortably with voicing of support for international law." www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

Continuing the new year's cheer I'd like to share some exciting personal news. After four years of hard work my PhD journey has come to an end, passing my PhD viva with no corrections just before Christmas 🥳

As the Americans pull back, the maneuvering in Europe becomes more visible. France wants to lead but lacks the capacity. Germany has the capacity but lacks the will. And the frontline states bordering Russia are left to fend for themselves. And the UK is busy focusing on little boats.

"Meta and TikTok are obstructing researchers’ access to data, "the European Commission rules Data are needed to study how social media spreads misinformation and influences elections, scientists say." www.science.org/content/arti...

Meta and TikTok are obstructing researchers’ access to data, European Commission rules

Data are needed to study how social media spreads misinformation and influences elections, scientists say

science.org

Social Media Lab@socialmedialab.ca · 7mo ago

Kick-start your academic research in 2026 with our new Social Media Research Toolkit, a curated collection of 50+ research tools compiled by researchers at our lab. socialmedialab.ca/apps/social-... #AcademicSky #ComSky #DiscourseAnalysis #LibrarySky #PhDSky #PolCom #ResearchSky #ResearchMatters

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Sky News does a great job here of showing that right wing voices get outsized amplification on X. The why of it is complicated (we have upcoming work on this). But the fact if it is undeniable. The platform is also full of clickbaity bullshit. Not unrelated.

Social Media Lab@socialmedialab.ca · 9mo ago

A fantastic piece of data journalism. #JournalismMatters💪 "How Elon Musk is Boosting the British Right. For nine months, Sky News' Data and Forensics team has been investigating whether X's algorithm amplifies right-wing and extreme content. It does." news.sky.com/story/the-x-...

arxiv.org/abs/2511.02615 from @baottruong.bsky.social et al ...

Community Notes are Vulnerable to Rater Bias and Manipulation

Social media platforms increasingly rely on crowdsourced moderation systems like Community Notes to combat misinformation at scale. However, these systems face challenges from rater bias and potential...

arxiv.org

New paper with @lucasgeese.bsky.social at @commsearth.nature.com UK MPs + publics in Britain, Canada, Chile & Germany underestimated the urgency of peaking global GHG emissions when surveyed in 2023. @tyndallcentre.bsky.social @cast-centre.bsky.social @climateuea.bsky.social rdcu.be/eI4J3

Publics and UK parliamentarians underestimate the urgency of peaking global greenhouse gas emissions

Communications Earth & Environment - UK members of parliament overestimate the time available to mitigate climate change, with notable partisan differences, and a similar lack of knowledge is...

rdcu.be

Glad Science collected this data (though the results are entirely unsurprising). GenAI cannot accurately summarize scientific papers, sacrificing accuracy for simplicity. And shame on publishers who are pushing genAI summaries on readers. Great way to accelerate an epistemic apocalypse.

Stefan Marciniak@profmarciniak.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Reading papers is a basic skill (and dare I say duty?) of scientists, and I include medical doctors in that group. Keeping abreast of the literature is a foundational part of our professions. There aren’t good shortcuts. In any case, reading papers regularly is fun. arstechnica.com/ai/2025/09/s...

A study finds that 75% of the time, people share links to news stories on Facebook without clicking on them first. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Sharing without clicking on news in social media - Nature Human Behaviour

Over 75% of links to news shared on Facebook during the election seasons of 2017–2020 were forwarded without the sharer first clicking on them. Extreme and user-aligned political content was shared mo...

nature.com

Google’s $45 Million Contract With Netanyahu's Office to Spread Israeli Propaganda "to explain that there is no hunger and present the data.” www.dropsitenews.com/p/google-you...

Google’s $45 Million Contract With Netanyahu's Office to Spread Israeli Propaganda

Google is in the middle of a six-month, $45 million contract to amplify propaganda with Netanyahu’s office. The contract describes Google as a “key entity” supporting the prime minister’s messaging.

dropsitenews.com

The Charlie Kirk gun control law to substantially limit open and concealed carry. The Carlie Kirk release the Epstein files law. The Charlie Kirk free speech law to ensure faculty can teach their area of expertise without harassment. Just thinking of ways Congress could honor him.

Radical right accommodation really does not work. New paper out with this exceptionally talented team @katharinalawall.bsky.social @robjohns75.bsky.social @drjennings.bsky.social @sarahobolt.bsky.social @zachdickson.bsky.social @danjdevine.bsky.social & @jack-bailey.co.uk doi.org/10.31235/osf...

Meta AI's chatbot 'Big sis Billie' not only pretended to be a real person-they invited an elderly vulnerable man to come visit them in NY. The man fell & died during his trip. According to internal docs, accuracy of AI is not a concern for Meta. Wildly inappropriate www.reuters.com/investigates...

A flirty Meta AI bot invited a retiree to meet. He never made it home.

Impaired by a stroke, a man fell for a Meta chatbot originally created with Kendall Jenner. His death spotlights Meta’s AI rules, which let bots tell falsehoods.

reuters.com

Motherfucking wind farms…

Today (w/ @ox.ac.uk @stanford @MIT @LSE) we’re sharing the results of the largest AI persuasion experiments to date: 76k participants, 19  LLMs, 707 political issues. We examine “levers” of AI persuasion: model scale, post-training, prompting, personalization, & more!  🧵:

Gaza is being deliberately starved to death in front of the whole world, and the only people being arrested over it are those who opposed the crime.

Every day, the same story, the same moral pit. The fall of this murderous government can't come soon enough. The only suitable place for Netenyahu is in court for war crimes.

Sky News@news.sky.com · last yr.

Gaza: More than 30 people killed 'as Israeli troops open fire towards Palestinians waiting for aid'

In Europe, big tech doesn't set the rules - we do. 🇪🇺 The Digital Markets Act is reshaping how digital platforms operate in order to: ✅ protect users ✅ boost competition ✅ ensure fairness So, what’s happening right now?

While the White House is firing scientists across the country who research "misinformation," it just released a new Executive Order promoting AI literacy. Ironically, many of the very scientists being dismissed—including myself—were already working on AI literacy. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1.  Background.

whitehouse.gov

A step in the right direction. Hopefully regulation of platforms continues rather than this being the exception.

Ofcom@ofcom.bsky.social · last yr.

🔒 Children in the UK will lead safer online lives as we've finalised safety measures for sites and apps to introduce from July. Tech firms must act to prevent children from seeing harmful content, and meet their duties under the Online Safety Act ➡️ Read more: www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safet...

Tis truly a loony time