Delighted to share that I passed my PhD viva yesterday at @lsegovernment.bsky.social, and that I'm now officially a doctor of political science! A huge thank you to my examiners, @caprosser.com and @nickanstead.bsky.social , for their time, insight, and thoughtful engagement with my thesis.

Farewell to one of the greats bsky.app/profile/hans...

🚨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...

Yikes

The man himself @michaelchabon.bsky.social is in the house!

How does polarisation play out on social media? Looking at Twitter between 2019 and 2021, the second paper in my thesis shows political conversations being driven by users with more ideologically- and affectively-extreme views. TL;DR: t'was a bin fire even in the relatively benign pre-Musk era.

Here are UK & US BlueSky numbers separately, to show what’s driving the trends: • Aug 3rd: Musk says ‘civil war is inevitable’ in UK during far right riots • Oct 17th: Musk changes the block function on X, prompting a massive exodus • Nov 7th: thousands more migrate in aftermath of Trump victory

It’s hard to believe, but I’m nearing the end of my doctoral journey. Over the past few years, I’ve been researching how social media influences democratic deliberation, and I’m excited to share a series of posts about what I’ve discovered. #socialmedia #politicalcommunication #research

📱 Is the Presidential race the 'TikTok election'? 🗣 Are politicians becoming more extreme in their online rhetoric? 💻 Why do people avoid discussing politics on social media? 🎙 I chatted with Chris at the LSE United States Centre about these questions and more 👇 www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvUT...

Nice piece from @stephenkb.bsky.social on loving the economy we actually have on.ft.com/3HjyVTt

Loved this! David Runciman compares and contrasts two truly great pieces of political writing in Rolling Stone, by Hunter S. Thompson and David Foster Wallace:

Not a fan of posting X stuff here but those who care about disinformation and electoral integrity might care about this X ‘policy update’. Polisky commsky polcomm

We are excited about a new year of Political Behaviour Seminars at the LSE! As usually, you can either come along in-person, or join us remotely at 4pm GMT, by signing up to our email list via [email protected]. More info: www.lse.ac.uk/government/r... Looking forward to it!

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