We have just updated our Social Media Research Toolkit, a curated collection of over 50 research tools compiled by researchers at the Social Media Lab. The kit only features tools that have been used in peer-reviewed academic research. socialmedialab.ca/apps/social-...

(How) can AI help build better online spaces? ✨ Last week, 16 researchers from 8 institutions gathered in Vienna to explore exactly that question. Between the Christmas markets, the WHAT-IF team discussed how LLMs can power agent-based simulations to tackle online hostility and harmful content 👇

It was a wonderful week: insightful keynotes, high-quality presentations, and lots of food for thought 🤩 Very grateful for the opportunity to present @what-if-horizon.bsky.social and for the amazing organization of the event! 🙌

NEW PREPRINT 💡 Together with @dougaparry.bsky.social, I just published a new preprint experimentally examining how specific normative cues on social media shape self-disclosure using an innovative simulation approach. Link: osf.io/preprints/ps... Read on for more information (1/9) 👇

New paper 🧪 We propose a field experiment to study the effects of friction interventions for curbing the spread of misinformation. ABM simulations suggest that when combined with learning, friction could significantly increase average post quality doi.org/10.1038/s442...

I’m very honored to be elected as International Liaison of the ICA CM Division and to serve our vibrant community! 🙏 Looking forward to starting the work very soon 🙌

🎉 We're really excited to be collaborating with our excellent partners on this, as part of WP3 of the What-If Horizon project, hosted at the Observatory. 🎯 Understanding what interventions affect citizen misinformation effects is crucial to build evidence based policy in the area! More insights 🔜

In the @what-if-horizon.bsky.social project, we are working with a fantastic group of partners to investigate the effects of quality news and media literacy on misinformation effects. More soon and updates below 👇 @andreucasas.bsky.social @vanatteveldt.com @maldita.es & Learn to Check!

Misinformation researchers benefit from real-world insights. Practitioners benefit from scientific evidence on what interventions actually work. Our partnership with the media literacy & fact-checking organizations Learn to Check! and @maldita.es combines both 🤝 🧵 below

Presented the @what-if-horizon.bsky.social project today at #SSC2025 in Delft 🙌 Very grateful for the helpful feedback from the social simulation community! Looking forward to implementing it w/ @anniewald.bsky.social and Taehee Kim ✨

Come chat with WHAT-IF researcher @aytalina.bsky.social at #SSC2025 in Delft! She’ll present our base model at the poster session Thursday, 13:00 📆 WHAT-IF creates a digital twin of the online political information space to test interventions & strengthen democratic discourse 👉 what-if-horizon.eu

Day 2 at the Social Simulation Conference 2025 ☕️ Corinna Elsenbroich talks about how agents-based modeling transforms our approach to causality and explanation in complex social systems 💡 #SSC2025

In addition to the original UK results, we have now ***replicated*** this (TWICE) in the US. The main findings hold strong: information diets are a lot more diverse in attention than in engagement. New version here: osf.io/preprints/os...

Interested in how social simulations can be used in democracy research? Check out our sister project #TWIN4DEM at #IC2S2 👇

Do LLMs represent the people they're supposed simulate or provide personalized assistance to? We review the current literature in our #ACL2025 Findings paper and investigating what researchers conclude about the demographic representativeness of LLMs: osf.io/preprints/so... 1/

📢 Big news for platform researchers across Europe and beyond: Today, the @ec.europa.eu adopted the Delegated Act for Article 40 of the Digital Services Act (DSA) – a long-anticipated milestone enabling researchers to request access to non-public platform data under Article 40.4.

FINALLY 😌 The Delegated Act is here. The Act clarifies rules for data access under the Digital Services Act #DSA #dataaccess #research #eusky #commsky #polisky #csssky digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/d...

Accessing social media data is currently tricky for researchers. Even if we get access, platforms deliver inconsistent, poorly documented data in different formats. Our WHAT-IF team found a way to handle Instagram, Facebook, X, YouTube & TikTok donations dynamically across 4 countries. A thread 🧵

On my way to Madrid-EPSA! Please join in if you want to hear about (political biases? in) content moderation on YouTube during the 2024 US Election, and/or about using open-source Large Visual Language Models (VLMs) for supervised multimodal classification in political science research.

I have a postdoc vacancy - www.academictransfer.com/nl/jobs/3528... at the TWON-project (twon-project.eu). Because the project runs only until 2025-03-31, the contract is limited - but maybe of interest for somebody who is just about to finish a PhD and needs something temporary?

WHAT-IF team members met in Konstanz last week to design the WHAT-IF machine—an agent-based simulation with LLM-driven agents. It models media ecosystems to test 'what if' policy scenarios. Curious how? Read more: what-if-horizon.eu/2025/05/16/o...

Watch this video of @arodilla.bsky.social to learn more about WHAT-IF!

Democracy in the Digital Age: Introducing the TWIN4DEM Approach 🗓 Date: 14 May 2024 📍 Location: Online ⏳ Duration: 2 hours 🌍 Language: English Fill out the online form forms.gle/XD6aLQeNV9wB... to express interest. More information here: twin4dem.eu/call-for-par...

The future of the internet is likely smaller communities, with a focus on curated experiences

🚨 NEW REPORT – Better Feeds: Algorithms That Put People First 🚨 As policymakers around the globe grapple with addressing concerns about algorithms, KGI’s new report offers guidance on improving the design of algorithmic systems that shape billions of users’ digital lives. bit.ly/3QzxVzq

MAGA forces are once again attacking researchers studying online misinformation and social media manipulation. In this article for Just Security, I write about what's going on at Indiana University, University of North Carolina, and other schools: www.justsecurity.org/109030/acade...

Great opportunity for those interested in (LLM-based) agents! Don’t miss the *extended* deadline for SemGenAge at ESWC 2025!

🚀 Attention social simulation enthusiasts! Working with LLM agents in social simulations or exploring how to bridge LLMs & semantic web technologies? Join this interdisciplinary workshop in Portorož, Slovenia (June 1-2) 📢 SemGenAge @ #ESWC2025 📅 CfP DL: March 6 🔗 www.twon-project.eu/semgenage25/

We are excited to be part of the WHAT-IF project! Looking forward to work with the incredible people and achieve great things!

We’re thrilled that the CCL is part of this incredible project! 🎉 @anniewald.bsky.social & @aytalina.bsky.social will contribute to agent-based modeling and simulations, while @hajoboo.bsky.social & @julaluehring.bsky.social will be engaged in science communication. Exciting collaborations ahead 🚀

Great vibes at the kick-off of WHAT-IF, our new Horizon project to explore how we can use synthetic data for policy simulations. Really looking forward to working with this great group of people!

Hello world! Meet our consortium—15 organizations, 10 countries—joining forces to rethink the digital political information space. 🚀 Last week, we kicked off our project WHAT-IF, setting the stage to build a digital twin that will help us test the impact of policy interventions. More in the 🧵!

We had an amazing time in the kick-off meeting. Brilliant and diverse people working on novel approaches to addressing important and timely challenges. Follow the project account and stay tuned!

Our project #WHAT-IF is live! 🚀 Disinformation and hate speech threaten democratic discourse. WHAT-IF is building a digital twin of the political information landscape to test interventions and foster healthier democracies. Stay tuned for updates and check our brand-new website: what-if-horizon.eu