We've added a new design to the library, rated tentative: 🌱 Bridging-based Ranking In a simulated-feed experiment, ranking posts higher when they get engagement from both sides of the aisle reduced people's intentions to post polarizing content. www.prosocialdesign.org/library/brid...

Bridging-based ranking – Prosocial Design Network

Reduce partisan animosity.

prosocialdesign.org

We've added a new design to the library, rated likely: 👍 Adding Balanced News In a 6-month experiment from @jonathanstray.bsky.social et al. inserting news from credible, ideologically balanced outlets into feeds reduced partisan animosity. www.prosocialdesign.org/library/addi...

Adding Balanced News – Prosocial Design Network

Reduce partisan animosity.

prosocialdesign.org

Announcing two convenings + $100k in mini-grants made possible by @templetonworld.bsky.social We're bringing together researchers & practitioners to catalyze practice-informed research to help platforms design for connection, understanding, and social cohesion online. tinyurl.com/23nf58du

Fostering Connection in Online Spaces

Convening Researchers and Practitioners to Catalyze Practice-Informed Research

prosocialdesign.org

‪ ⏰Reminder! Upcoming Event.⏰ Join us to discuss our new report, Connecting Researchers & Practitioners to Catalyze Actionable Research together with members of the Expert Working Group who produced it! 🗓 Thursday, July 9 1pm ET luma.com/hkqnlr3u?tk=...

Report Roundtable: Connecting Researchers & Practitioners to Catalyze Actionable Research · Zoom · Luma

Academics and other researchers outside of industry produce hundreds of studies a year to investigate and inform the use of prosocial design in digital spaces.…

luma.com

🚨Upcoming Event 🚨 Join us to discuss our new report, Connecting Researchers & Practitioners to Catalyze Actionable Research together with members of the Expert Working Group who produced it! 🗓 Thursday, July 9 1pm ET luma.com/hkqnlr3u?tk=...

Report Roundtable: Connecting Researchers & Practitioners to Catalyze Actionable Research · Zoom · Luma

Academics and other researchers outside of industry produce hundreds of studies a year to investigate and inform the use of prosocial design in digital spaces.…

luma.com

Treating people with dignity and fairness is the right thing to do. But what if applying that fairness to how rule violations get handled could also reduce harm and foster healthier engagement? A primer on due process in content moderation ⤵️ www.prosocialdesign.org/blog/due-pro...

Due Process: Why Fair Moderation Builds Healthier Communities

Research suggests fair moderation can reduce harm and foster healthier engagement

prosocialdesign.org

We've added a new intervention to the library rated tentative: regional identity tags. New research suggests that showing regional identity in comment threads reduced incivility, apparently because it activated a sense of regional responsibility. www.prosocialdesign.org/library/regi...

Regional Identity Tags – Prosocial Design Network

Increase civility in online discussions

prosocialdesign.org

Two of our own have a chapter in a new book! 🎉 @dgruning.bsky.social and @juliakamin.bsky.social contributed "Prosocial Design in Trust and Safety" to Trust, Safety, and the Internet We Share from Trust and Safety Foundation.

Great to see this study finally published. In @prosocialdesign.bsky.social 's review of the evidence on the effectiveness of different approaches to reducing the spread of misinformation, we found Community Notes was second only to "Accuracy Nudges": www.prosocialdesign.org/blog/primer-...

Primer: What We Know About Effective Misinformation Interventions

A review of the evidence from PDN's Design Library.

prosocialdesign.org

In partnership with Roblox, we brought together 40+ academics and Roblox team members around one question: how do you foster connection in social gaming spaces? That produced 6 funded research projects. This Thursday, the teams present their initial findings. 📅May 21. 12:00 ET. luma.com/5pzchf47

Researcher Roundtable: Fostering Connection in Social Gaming · Zoom · Luma

How can we foster connection in social gaming spaces? In Fall 2025, Roblox and Prosocial Design Network brought together more than 40 academics and Roblox team…

luma.com

The Institute is proud of our members for partnering with @prosocialdesign.bsky.social and Trust & Safety Foundation on this important report! These recommendations highlight the critical need for strong cross-sector collaboration when working to build healthier digital spaces. Read more below ⤵️

Prosocial Design Network@prosocialdesign.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Can researchers & tech professionals connect to catalyze actionable research that supports healthier digital spaces? We've launched a new report alongside colleagues from the Trust and Safety Foundation, @integrity-inst.bsky.social & more. www.prosocialdesign.org/blog/connect...

Can researchers & tech professionals connect to catalyze actionable research that supports healthier digital spaces? We've launched a new report alongside colleagues from the Trust and Safety Foundation, @integrity-inst.bsky.social & more. www.prosocialdesign.org/blog/connect...

Connecting Researchers & Practitioners to Catalyze Actionable Research

Expert Working Group Report

prosocialdesign.org

Join us for “When prosocial design hits the gaming ecosystem” Part of @socialcohesiontech.bsky.social’s Global Expo 2026: From Harm Mitigation to Intentional Design. 📆May 20. Free & Hybrid. Register ➡️ techandsocialcohesion.org/expo-2026-register

@prosocialdesign.bsky.social says a new social media metric could elevate positive, prosocial content! Scores rating a post’s “quality,” as opposed to likes and shares, could help minimize the reach of toxic posts on social platforms: www.prosocialdesign.org/library/qual...

We hope that the more we share about Roundabout, why we built it, & what we’re learning, the more pro-social tech we can see out in the world. TY @prosocialdesign.bsky.social for featuring Roundabout team members @clockwerks.bsky.social, @blaine.bsky.social, @adit.bsky.social, & @sammy.bsky.social.

Building Roundabout: A Pro-Social Platform for Local Communities

A conversation with the team behind New_ Public's Roundabout.

prosocialdesign.org

Can we use LLM agents to test prosocial design interventions before they touch real users? In our next PDN Prosocial Design Research Workshop, @jacyanthis.bsky.social explores the promise and limitations of LLM social simulations. 📆 Tuesday 5/19, 12pm ET luma.com/iyf2f4g0

LLM Simulations and Research: Promise & Pitfalls · Zoom · Luma

LLMs have created new, exciting avenues for social science research through the ability to simulate human behavior at scale. With AI agents that interact,…

luma.com

Does it matter HOW you write community rules? Research across thousands of subreddits suggests yes. "Be nice" beats "don't be mean" for community sentiment. But there's no one-size-fits-all approach. New Pro-Social recap with @galenweld.bsky.social: www.prosocialdesign.org/blog/the-rig...

The Right Community Rules? Lessons from Reddit: A Pro-Social Recap

Does it matter what rules communities set if they want prosocial outcomes?

prosocialdesign.org

📚New in the library: Quality Scores New research found that adding a quality score to posts & comments, alongside popularity cues, can nudge users to engage with higher-quality content, mitigating the negative effects of relying on popularity alone. www.prosocialdesign.org/library/qual...

There’s evidence that clear community rules lead to healthier interactions, but do some rules work better than others? @galenweld.bsky.social's research into Reddit user values and governance begins to draw a picture. Join us to discuss 📆 April 23 at 1pm ET luma.com/yqejhsoj?tk=...

PDN Pro-Social. The Right Community Rules? Lessons from Reddit · Zoom · Luma

There's strong evidence that setting clear community norms and rules results in healthier interactions - and even more engagement. But does it matter what…

luma.com

There’s evidence that clear community rules lead to healthier interactions, but do some rules work better than others? Galen Weld's research into Reddit user values and governance begins to draw a picture. 📆Join us to discuss April 23 at 1pm ET. luma.com/yqejhsoj?tk=...

PDN Pro-Social. The Right Community Rules? Lessons from Reddit · Zoom · Luma

There's strong evidence that setting clear community norms and rules results in healthier interactions - and even more engagement. But does it matter what…

luma.com

What if social media was designed to support local communities? That’s the question @newpublic.org had in mind when they built Roundabout: a local community platform built on AT Protocol 🦋 We sat down with four members of their team to learn more about it. www.prosocialdesign.org/blog/buildin...

Building Roundabout: A Pro-Social Platform for Local Communities

A conversation with the team behind New_ Public's Roundabout.

prosocialdesign.org

New blog post: we broke down a paper by our own David Grüning, Julia Kamin et al. on how researchers study whether a platform design change makes social media more prosocial, when you don't work there and can't access its systems. The answer? It's complicated www.prosocialdesign.org/blog/testing...

Testing Design: How Researchers Study Social Media

The methods and recommendations from 31 researchers who gathered at a day-long workshop.

prosocialdesign.org

There’s evidence that clear community rules lead to healthier interactions, but do some rules work better than others? Galen Weld's research into Reddit user values and governance begins to draw a picture. 📆Join us to discuss April 23 at 1pm ET. luma.com/yqejhsoj?tk=...

PDN Pro-Social. The Right Community Rules? Lessons from Reddit · Zoom · Luma

There's strong evidence that setting clear community norms and rules results in healthier interactions - and even more engagement. But does it matter what…

luma.com

Can social media algorithms be designed to foster pluralism? Does doing so come at the expense of engagement? Kylan Rutherford from the Prosocial Ranking Challenge put that question to the test in a large-scale field experiment. He joins to share what he's learned 📅April 29. luma.com/pvxgxop8

Testing Prosocial Algorithms · Zoom · Luma

Social media algorithms are, with exceptions, designed to engage. Critics contend that comes at a cost to civic society by amplifying content that stirs…

luma.com

Meta's Oversight Board cautions against the expansion of Community Notes to countries with repressive regimes “until Meta can demonstrate robust contributor privacy protections" for the volunteer users behind the notes. www.socialmediatoday.com/news/metas-o...

Meta’s Oversight Board warns against expanded rollout of community notes

The board said a crowd-sourced approach, which replaced the company’s third-party fact checking in the U.S., may not be safe in other regions.

socialmediatoday.com

You might think chronological feeds would reduce toxic partisanship, but evidence so far suggests otherwise. What does research say platforms can do? Tune their algorithms to dial divisive political content down. www.prosocialdesign.org/blog/do-soci...

Do Social Media Feeds Fuel Political Division?

A new study suggests that algorithms can influence attitudes toward political outgroups.

prosocialdesign.org

Join us for Pro-Social with @newpublic.org and the team behind their social platform Roundabout. We’ll talk to them about designing digital spaces that genuinely support healthy local communities. 📅Thursday, March 26, 1pm ET 🎟️ Register: luma.com/5vzxn9vn?tk=...

PDN Pro-Social. Building a Prosocial Platform for Local Communities · Zoom · Luma

At PDN we mostly think about prosocial design as elements that can be integrated into an online space to foster healthy outcomes. But what if you created a…

luma.com

Social media feeds are optimized for engagement, but what if they were also optimized for better disagreement? @jonathanstray.bsky.social joined us to talk about prosocial ranking and designing feeds that support social cohesion without flattening conflict. www.prosocialdesign.org/blog/pro-soc...

Pro-Social recap: Building Better Feeds

Jonathan Stray on how our feeds can support "better conflict."

prosocialdesign.org

Incredible new tool from @asml.cyber.harvard.edu.web.brid.gy charting platform privacy policies on levels of transparency and opt-in vs opt-out, both today and overtime. analytics.transparency.berkmancenter.org#q1

New study: Researchers looked at a 2022 policy change at TikTok that added a regional identity tag, and found it reduced impolite language. It may be the first (quasi) field study that shows common identity markers can improve interactions. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Digital Nudges for Civility: How Identity Salience Reduces Impolite Language on TikTok

This two-study investigation examines how identity-based digital nudges influence politeness in online communication. Study 1 employs a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) to evaluate a TikTok po...

tandfonline.com