So many interesting findings in this work from @mmosleh.bsky.social and @dgrand.bsky.social comparing news sharing and engagement by quality and partisanship across 7 platforms Notable partisan asymmetries. Low quality news gets more engagement, driven by traditional news getting poor engagement

🚨 New preprint alert: We show that web-browsing GPT and LLaMA models can infer social media user demographics with reasonable accuracy—using only usernames. This opens new possibilities for social media research in the post-API era but raises important privacy concerns.

New research! Experts from @oii.ox.ac.uk and @mitsloan.bsky.social explore how friends of friends become friends on social media platform X in new research published in @pnas.org. 1/4

Wolfson GBF Prof @mmosleh.bsky.social has co-authored a study revealing that posts made by Republican users on X are more than twice as likely to be flagged for misinformation than those by Democrats. Read more at our website: www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/news/misinfo...

🚨In PNAS🚨 The right often accuses fact-checkers of political bias But we analyzed Community Notes on Musk's X and found posts flagged as "misleading" are 2.3x more likely to be written by Reps than Dems! The issue is Reps sharing misinformation, not fact-checker bias... www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🚨 New in PNAS 🚨 Posts by Republicans are 2.3 times more likely to be flagged as misleading than those by Democrats on X's Community Notes. A 🧵 pnas.org/doi/epub/10.... (Open Access)

In case you missed it, OII Prof @mmosleh.bsky.social has authored an expert comment piece for @ox.ac.uk on his recent research on how to increase engagement with factchecking. Read it here: www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-04...

New! In his latest opinion piece, Associate Professor, @mmosleh.bsky.social @oii.ox.ac.uk asks how we can encourage engagement with online fact-checking? Read the full article: www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/...

An exploration of the increasingly muddy waters of online fact-checking - a fascinating read from Wolfson GBF @mmosleh.bsky.social as he examines the role of shared ideology and social connection in whether people engage with fact-checks that aim to counter online misinformation.

🚨New in @plosone.org🚨 Corrections of misinfo are often ignored. What can drive engagement? Twitter field exp & survey followups find -Social ties matter: users more likely to engage w corrections from accounts who followed user -Shared partisanship had smaller effects on engagement shorturl.at/0Ycdp

Read the full study ‘Promoting engagement with social fact-checks online: investigating the roles of social connection and shared partnership’, authors @cameronmartel.bsky.social . @mmosleh.bsky.social , @eckles.bsky.social and @dgrand.bsky.social. Download here: bit.ly/4iR4HbO

In the latest episode of the OII podcast, we're tackling misinformation and polarization on social media. What's the real-world impact? How are governments responding? And what about AI and deepfakes? Listen here: podcasts.ox.ac.uk/why-social-m...

📈Out today in @PNASNews!📈 In a large pre-registered experiment (n=25,982), we find evidence that scaling the size of LLMs yields sharply diminishing persuasive returns for static political messages.  🧵:

🚨New WP🚨 Remember Musk+Zuck+Trump+Jordan etc crying fact-checker bias b/c Reps were flagged more than Dems? We analyzed Community Notes on Musk's X and guess what: posts flagged as "misleading" are 67% more likely to be written by Reps! The issue is Reps, not fact-checkers... osf.io/preprints/ps...

New paper alert! ‘Racial Minorities Face Discrimination From Across the Political Spectrum When Seeking to Form Ties on Social Media: Evidence From a Field Experiment’, authors: Krishnan Nair, @mmosleh.bsky.social @oiioxford.bsky.social; and Maryam Kouchaki. Download the study: bit.ly/3EbQnuZ

Fact-checkers have of course made mistakes, but perceptions of systematic bias are driven by a real-world asymmetry in misinformation sharing in the contemporary US that even politically balanced groups of laypeople recognize www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Really happy to have been able to help with this paper, as it provides solid, empirical evidence relevant to decisions being made today.

Fact-checking wasn’t “biased” against conservatives. Conservatives just shared more false content. If there’s a sportsball game and one team fouls four times as much, it’s not “biased” for the ref to call four times as many fouls against that team.

Not sure if this is what you're getting at, but we've advocated for platforms to provide more info about the "provenance" of the content that reaches us — e.g. who first posted, who played a major role in amplifying, and who in your network brought that content to you: dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1...

🚨In Nature🚨 Meta is dropping fact-checking to avoid anti-conservative bias- but is there actually evidence of bias? We this test empirically & find that conservatives * ARE suspended more * BUT share more misinfo So suspension isn't necessarily evidence of bias www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I created this starter pack of researchers based in Europe who study misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda. I suspect this list will grow -- get in touch with suggestions go.bsky.app/36RdG8Z

Interesting finding - preference for low quality info is bipartisan and not necessarily algorithmically generated.

Self-reported sharing intentions of low-quality news in surveys are predictive of actual sharing of low-quality news on X, finds @arechar.bsky.social @mmosleh.bsky.social @gordpennycook.bsky.social @dgrand.bsky.social doi.org/10.31234/osf...

I am really excited about this line work together with @dgrand.bsky.social and @jennyallen.bsky.social where explore engagement, political lean, and quality of news posts across multiple platforms. See the pre-print as follows:

🚨New WP🚨 We examine news sharing on 7 platforms: 1)Right-leaning platforms=lower quality news 2)Echo-platforms: Right-leaning news gets more engagement on right-leaning platforms, vice-versa for left-leaning 3)But low-quality news gets more engagement EVERYWHERE, even BlueSky! osf.io/preprints/ps...

Second, Oxford Internet Institute et al, feat. @universityofoxford.bsky.social OII researchers and alums: go.bsky.app/BFAiEsm Your feed will be all the better for these packs :)

🚨New in JEP:G🚨 Why do ppl preferentially reciprocate follows by co-partisans online? In a Twitter field exp & online survey exp we find: -Both content *and* social prefs drive co-party tie-making -Distinct roles for in-party pref & out-party dispref dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0...

🚨Out in Nature!🚨 Many (eg Trump JimJordan Musk Vance) have accused social media of anti-conservative bias - but is this accurate? We test empirically, and it's more complicated than you might think: conservatives ARE suspended more, but also share more misinfo www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I’m really excited about joining @oiioxford as an Associate Prof in Social Data Science & Governing Body Fellow @WolfsonCollege ; I’m so thankful to my students & colleagues @UofEBusiness www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/...

Partisans blocking counter-partisans drives polarization on Twitter, with Dems more likely to block Reps than vice versa because Dems want to block accounts that post low-quality information, finds @cameronmartel.bsky.social @mmosleh.bsky.social @dgrand.bsky.social et al. doi.org/10.1093/pnas...

Prior work on political assortment on social networks mostly focus on "connect" to like-minded others. In our recent work, we showed "disconnect" (blocking) is also a key driver of polarized social networks. h/t @cameronmartel.bsky.social @dgrand.bsky.social Tauhid Zaman Qi yang #socialmedia

🚨New in PNAS Nexus🚨 Twitter field exps: -Users block counter-partisans 12x more than co-partisans -Dems block Reps more than vice-versa Survey exps: -Why block? To not see blocked user's posts -Dem/Rep diff prob bc Dems block misinfo/toxic sharers more  academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

🚨Out in Psych Sci🚨 Prompting accuracy can increase news sharing quality - but is this true for those on the political right? In an ADVERSARIAL COLLABORATION we find: ➡️ Acc prompts increase sharing quality of Republicans ➡️ Some evidence of greater efficacy for those on left v right

🚨New PNASNexus🚨 We join work on misinformation & harmful language: -More harmful language in tweets w low-quality news links β=0.1 & in false headlines β=0.19 -Users who share more misinfo use more harmful language in non-news tweets β=0.13 academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar... w @mmosleh.bsky.social

Tweets linking to lower-quality new sources use more harmful language, and Twitter users who more often share low-quality sources use more harmful language in all of their posts (even posts not containing misinformation), finds @mmosleh.bsky.social, Cole & @dgrand.bsky.social doi.org/10.31234/osf...

🚨Out in PNAS🚨 Know that influential finding that more numerate ppl are more politically biased? We did NOT replicate it in large probability sample Across 5 issues, more numeracy = more correct ans Tho political alignment DID have main effect (controlling for priors) www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...