🚨New Science Advances🚨 Untrustworthy sources on Facebook and Instagram in 2020: Concentrated exposure but no attitudinal effects www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... -Exposure very low but highly concentrated -Reducing exposure by ~70% for months had no measurable effects *even among frequent consumers*

New paper out in Computational Communication Research We analyze 8.4 million English-language #MeToo tweets from 2017–2019 to study how consciousness-raising cultivates activated senses of identity online. www.aup-online.com/content/jour...

Read @pettertornberg.com's fascinating paper on changes in social media use patterns in JQD:DM! Link and thread below:

Petter Törnberg@pettertornberg.com · 4mo ago

Is social media dying? How much did Twitter change as it became X? Which party now dominates the conversation? Using nationally representative ANES data from 2020 & 2024, I map how the U.S. social media landscape has changed Here are the key take-aways 🧵 Full paper out now in in JQD:DM!

The answer is that students now correctly anticipate that the federal government will punish the entire campus --- cancelling federal grants, opening investigations, and deporting international students --- if even a handful of students dare to speak out on any political issue.

The Bulwark@thebulwark.com · 4mo ago

As President Donald Trump’s unauthorized war on Iran with Israel entered into its second month, some Democratic officials were looking around and wondering: Where are the anti-war protests this time around? And why are college campuses so quiet? @lauren-egan.bsky.social takes a look.

🚨NEW DISINFO PAPER🚨 TLDR; disinformation circulates as narratives, not false facts. This paper took five years (!!!) and a rotating cast of collaborators and GRAs. Our case studies include the pee tape, and we have an entire appendix justifying that. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Disinformation as Cultural Narrative: Conceptualizing Disinformation as Cross-Platform, Identity-Affirming, Cathartic Stories

Rather than framing disinformation as false facts which can be countered by true facts, we propose a model of disinformation as narrative by tracing three case studies of successful disinformation ...

tandfonline.com

Thrilled to publish my latest article BAN COOKIE BANNERS: A CASE STUDY IN TECH REGULATION with the Harv. J. of Law & Tech! A cri de cœur to end this worse-than-useless regulatory compliance regime and let something that actually protects users take its place. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... 1/

The real story is that foreign govts try to "interfere" all the time. In 2020 and 2024 we had mechanisms to catch them, call them out, & mitigate damage. Now, those mechanims are gone & the Trump admin would prefer to exploit "foreign interference" to justify a federal take-over of elections.

Kate Starbird@katestarbird.bsky.social · 5mo ago

OFFS. When Iran tried to interefere in 2020, researchers caught them and called them out. Then the Benz-Weiss-Taibbi-Musk-Jordan-Trump axis labeled those researchers "censors" ... and set about defunding them and dismantling their organizations.

Last week the story was that TikTok censored anti-Trump/ICE/Pretti videos after the U.S. ownership change. We investigated with a large set of US TikTok data and found some interesting results, short thread...

Essential research, a great place to work, extremely cool colleagues - if I had any relevant technical skills (and did not already work next door) I'd apply.

andyguess@andyguess.com · 8mo ago

The Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton invites applications for a Postdoctoral Fellow to work with an interdisciplinary team (me, @bstewart.bsky.social, and @manoelhortaribeiro.bsky.social). Link: puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/app... Please apply by THIS SUNDAY, Dec. 14!

The Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton invites applications for a Postdoctoral Fellow to work with an interdisciplinary team (me, @bstewart.bsky.social, and @manoelhortaribeiro.bsky.social). Link: puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/app... Please apply by THIS SUNDAY, Dec. 14!

📣 Yale workshop, Oct 16-17! 📣 How could/should content ranking work? What's new in content moderation? How can platforms promote civility? Hosted by Yale's Institute for Foundations of Data Science (FDS). Great speakers! Submit posters by 9/22! Spread the word! yalefds.swoogo.com/socialalgori...

New Directions in Social Algorithms Research on October 16-17, 2025 at Yale University

As social media algorithms increasingly mediate social experiences, there has been a rapid increase in research on the effects of how these algorithms are configured, alternatives to engagement-centri...

yalefds.swoogo.com

Very cool looking Ass Prof job posting from the great group at Copenhagen Business School www.cbs.dk/cbs/jobs-paa...

FTC and Musk are working to sue Media Matters out of existence. A real canary in the coalmine moment for civil society. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/25/u...

Under Siege From Trump and Musk, a Top Liberal Group Falls Into Crisis

nytimes.com

Deeply reported story by @stephaniemlee.bsky.social, on the impact of grant terminations — even for those who have managed to get their awards reinstated “I do not trust 100 percent,” one researcher said, “that there won’t be another termination.”

Stephanie M. Lee@stephaniemlee.bsky.social · last yr.

NEW: Their NIH grants are back, but nothing is back to normal. In June, a judge ordered the restoration of 900+ terminated grants. So how's that going? Scientists say they're happy, but also it's been a bumpy road—and they're afraid their funds will get cut again. www.chronicle.com/article/thei...

Anyway, I know it's not news that Trump is hypocritical, but here's my story reminding people that MAGA world insisted that the Biden admin sending impolite notes to Facebook was the greatest threat to free speech, but are completely silent on Trump calling up Murdoch and demanding he kill a story

Techdirt@techdirt.com · last yr.

Trump Threatens, Then Sues Murdoch Over Epstein Story Using Tactics His Supporters Used To Call A ‘Massive Attack on Free Speech’ Donald Trump admitted yesterday that he called Rupert Murdoch and demanded the Wall Street Journal kill its story about Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. When…

Will Meet The Press ask random other white politicians to condemn Trump's antisemitic language this weekend? Or does that only apply to Mamdani?

Matt Novak@paleofuture.bsky.social · last yr.

"No death tax, no estate tax, no going to the banks and borrowing from, in some cases, a fine banker. And in some cases, shylocks and bad people."

It’s weird how the white conservative guys at the NYT get to say whatever they want but anyone else has to watch what they say because it’s “too political”

Razzball@razzball.bsky.social · last yr.

So, Jamelle Bouie criticizes an attempted-gotcha on Mamdani at NYT, then NYT asks him to remove any criticism from social, but the author of the attempted-gotcha works with impunity? Do I have that right?

A nice complement to this paper by @aecoppock.bsky.social and @andyguess.com alexandercoppock.com/guess_coppoc..., which found no evidence of backlash from one-sided counter-attitudinal information

David Rand@dgrand.bsky.social · last yr.

Great new paper by Stagnaro & Amsalem in NatComm: Detailed fact-based informational module about gun control leads to persistent reductions in polarization (attitudes move towards midpoint). Seeing the evidence cited by other side makes opinions more moderate www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Not surprising that an administration that rose to power on the spread of bullshit and propaganda is terminating the funding of researchers studying these phenomena. We are just receiving word about funding cancellations re: existing grants to members of our team and our colleagues.

Sean Carroll@seanmcarroll.bsky.social · last yr.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is terminating a bunch of research funding. Much of this is in line with the goal of making sure nothing gets in the way of systemic racism and sexism, but they also explicitly target research on "misinformation/disinformation." www.nsf.gov/updates-on-p...

Out now! "GERDA: The German Election Database." GERDA provides comprehensive municipal, state, and federal election results at the municipality level between 1990 and 2021. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

GERDA: The German Election Database - Scientific Data

Scientific Data - GERDA: The German Election Database

nature.com

We hang together or we hang separately. Could not be clearer what is happening and how universities must respond.

Jason "Red5" Lyall@jaylyall.bsky.social · last yr.

Trump Officials Freeze $1 Billion for Cornell and $790 Million for Northwestern The funding pause amid civil rights "investigations" into both universities sharply escalates the Trump administration’s campaign against elite colleges.

Every single university president should be asked, in public, why they are not speaking out this way to support all the students currently detained without due process, and all those terrified that they will be next, on every campus in this country. Yes, including Columbia's acting president.

Joshua J. Friedman@joshuajfriedman.com · last yr.

NEW: Tufts files a declaration in support of Rümeysa Öztürk: "The University has no information to support the allegations that she was engaged in activities at Tufts that warrant her arrest and detention." www.tufts.edu/president/sp...

If we were conquered and under hostile occupation, what would the government do differently? Would an occupation government that wanted to crush the United States as a vibrant, prosperous country with influence around the world do anything differently?

Former Columbia president Lee Bollinger, interviewed by the Chronicle earlier this month, said universities should think in centuries and consider what they might look back on in shame; apparently Columbia’s current leadership considered the question and decided they’re content submitting to a king.

Reminder that 'savvy' political fact checkers spent the entire campaign telling voters that Trump was not going to do the things he obviously was going to do.

Social Security Works@socialsecurityworks.org · last yr.

BREAKING: Trump's billionaire Commerce Secretary says that seniors won't care if they don't get their Social Security checks — and that anyone who does complain is a fraudster.

I'm sure this is the last time they'll ever threaten Columbia's funding. So rest easy. It's not like Donald Trump to keep on threatening the same person or entity over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. I don't think the sets any precedent. 🙄

southpaw@nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · last yr.

This is just the worst week. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

me for the next 4 years

As Vance 'lectures' Europe on free speech, it is good to be reminded that the United States ranks 55 (!) on the World Press Freedom Index. The top 10 countries are ALL in Europe. #journalism #democracy #freepress rsf.org/en/index

I really wish Americans would stop treating the continued existence of Canada as the sort of thing they can do amusing thought experiments about.

Peter Baker@peterbakernyt.bsky.social · last yr.

Canada as the 51st state? Trump thinks it would be a boon to his legacy. But it would also be a boon to Democrats, who would gain a lot more voters. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/17/u...