🚨New article with @andres-bernstein.bsky.social at @bjpir.bsky.social using @ess-survey.bsky.social. We show a positive association between different conspiracy beliefs and populist radical right attitudes, and how such associations can sometimes differ between Western and Central & Eastern Europe.

FIFA World Peace Prize material right here. This is a sickening sentence for anyone to utter - let alone the sitting US President.

Very pleased to say that my PhD thesis “The Misinformation Game: The Effectiveness of Analogue Serious Games as an Inoculation Against Misinformation” is now available online. ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/10...

🚨New paper in Popular Communication! 🚨 "Inoculation theory as a design approach to game-based misinformation interventions: a review". (1/9)🧵🔽 dx.doi.org/10.1080/1540.... #InoculationTheory #misinformation #socpsyc #design #seriousgames #learning

Out now with Wiley: The Handbook of Inoculation Theory and Practice, edited by Bobi Ivanov, Kimberly Parker, and me—the first handbook devoted entirely to inoculation theory. Grateful for my co-editors and contributors. #InoculationTheory www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Ha...

Can confirm a recent anti-Trump post of mine there is blocked from viewing in the United States - my parents and US friends cannot see it when directly linked. Also, big anti Trump TikTok-ers have suddenly lost live viewership.

New paper: CAST's Dr John Kenny & Prof Steve Fisher's journal article on "Europeans’ climate consciousness: increased yet more politicised" was published last month, using the European Social Survey from 2016-17 and 2020-22 📣 Read the paper 👇 doi.org/10.1080/0964... Key findings thread 🧵

If the EU and UK won’t stand up for international law in Venezuela, what exactly will they say or do when the US comes for Greenland?

Continuing the new year's cheer I'd like to share some exciting personal news. After four years of hard work my PhD journey has come to an end, passing my PhD viva with no corrections just before Christmas 🥳

As the Americans pull back, the maneuvering in Europe becomes more visible. France wants to lead but lacks the capacity. Germany has the capacity but lacks the will. And the frontline states bordering Russia are left to fend for themselves. And the UK is busy focusing on little boats.

"Meta and TikTok are obstructing researchers’ access to data, "the European Commission rules Data are needed to study how social media spreads misinformation and influences elections, scientists say." www.science.org/content/arti...

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Sky News does a great job here of showing that right wing voices get outsized amplification on X. The why of it is complicated (we have upcoming work on this). But the fact if it is undeniable. The platform is also full of clickbaity bullshit. Not unrelated.

arxiv.org/abs/2511.02615 from @baottruong.bsky.social et al ...

New paper with @lucasgeese.bsky.social at @commsearth.nature.com UK MPs + publics in Britain, Canada, Chile & Germany underestimated the urgency of peaking global GHG emissions when surveyed in 2023. @tyndallcentre.bsky.social @cast-centre.bsky.social @climateuea.bsky.social rdcu.be/eI4J3

Just fuck off with this. How about start the conversation by highlighting how much immigrants contribute to the UK - not least by propping up the NHS and social care system! Also - forced volunteering is not volunteering, it's unpaid labour.

Glad Science collected this data (though the results are entirely unsurprising). GenAI cannot accurately summarize scientific papers, sacrificing accuracy for simplicity. And shame on publishers who are pushing genAI summaries on readers. Great way to accelerate an epistemic apocalypse.

A study finds that 75% of the time, people share links to news stories on Facebook without clicking on them first. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Google’s $45 Million Contract With Netanyahu's Office to Spread Israeli Propaganda "to explain that there is no hunger and present the data.” www.dropsitenews.com/p/google-you...

The Charlie Kirk gun control law to substantially limit open and concealed carry. The Carlie Kirk release the Epstein files law. The Charlie Kirk free speech law to ensure faculty can teach their area of expertise without harassment. Just thinking of ways Congress could honor him.

Radical right accommodation really does not work. New paper out with this exceptionally talented team @katharinalawall.bsky.social @robjohns75.bsky.social @drjennings.bsky.social @sarahobolt.bsky.social @zachdickson.bsky.social @danjdevine.bsky.social & @jack-bailey.co.uk doi.org/10.31235/osf...

Meta AI's chatbot 'Big sis Billie' not only pretended to be a real person-they invited an elderly vulnerable man to come visit them in NY. The man fell & died during his trip. According to internal docs, accuracy of AI is not a concern for Meta. Wildly inappropriate www.reuters.com/investigates...

Motherfucking wind farms…

Today (w/ @ox.ac.uk @stanford @MIT @LSE) we’re sharing the results of the largest AI persuasion experiments to date: 76k participants, 19  LLMs, 707 political issues. We examine “levers” of AI persuasion: model scale, post-training, prompting, personalization, & more!  🧵:

Gaza is being deliberately starved to death in front of the whole world, and the only people being arrested over it are those who opposed the crime.

Every day, the same story, the same moral pit. The fall of this murderous government can't come soon enough. The only suitable place for Netenyahu is in court for war crimes.

In Europe, big tech doesn't set the rules - we do. 🇪🇺 The Digital Markets Act is reshaping how digital platforms operate in order to: ✅ protect users ✅ boost competition ✅ ensure fairness So, what’s happening right now?

While the White House is firing scientists across the country who research "misinformation," it just released a new Executive Order promoting AI literacy. Ironically, many of the very scientists being dismissed—including myself—were already working on AI literacy. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

A step in the right direction. Hopefully regulation of platforms continues rather than this being the exception.

Tis truly a loony time

|| New Publication (Nature Communications) Psychological Booster Shots Targeting Memory​ Increase Long-Term Resistance Against Misinformation doi.org/10.1038/s414... Press Release www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-03... Key Findings * Inoculation works * Effects dissipate * Booster shots remedy this (1/10)

Wealthy Teen Nearly Experiences Consequence theonion.com/wealthy...

We need the cerulean sweater scene from The Devil Wears Prada, but for science funding.

Good morning to this man, and this man only #bbcqt

Our meta-analysis "Reasons to believe: A systematic review and meta-analytic synthesis of the motives associated with conspiracy beliefs" is now published at Psychological Bulletin! Please refer to this thread, ResearchGate, and PsyArXiv for details! psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-...

This is a real example of where research disinformation completely dwarfs research communication on social media.

How politicians communicate shapes online discourse in ways we might overlook. Our new paper shows that their choice between a fact-based (evidence-driven) and a belief-based (sincerity-driven) honesty creates a "contagion" effect, influencing how users engage and respond. ⬇️(1/8)

Nearly 250,000 people in Berlin showed up to protest fascism and the Musk backed AfD party.

The commissars have arrived open.substack.com/pub/insideme...

If you’re looking at what’s happening in the US, seeing Musk considering making massive donations to Reform & trying to subvert our democracy, and are rightly horrified, might I recommend signing this - petition.parliament.uk/petitions/70...

Just put the finishing touches on our article arguing for strong foundational immediate literacy skills for younger children prior to screen use (centered around the teaching practices of an amazing elementary educator) #medialiteracy #media #literacies #edusky #academicsky #acwri

We don’t talk enough about the importance of standard components in a greener economy. Engineers always say “but *our* design for battery/connector/module is 2% better than a standard one”, missing the point that it’s far worse for repair, reuse, recycling & minimising extra “stuff”. It’s maddening.

🚨New preprint is out! 🚨 "Inoculation Theory as a Design Approach To Gamified Misinformation". 🧵🔽 osf.io/preprints/ps... #InoculationTheory #misinformation #socpsyc #design #gamification #learning

🧵 Turkey or trickery? Can you tell the real bird from the AI-generated version? Test yourself with this thread. 💡 Remember that given how good artificial intelligence is getting, the best strategy for vetting a post you're not sure about is to check the source. #Turkey #ArtificialIntelligence

Are you interested in political trust but think 'actually, it's a bit more complicated than that'? You'd be right! In a draft paper, we use original data from 13 surveys across 11 countries & 52 focus groups w/ 311 participants in 8 countries, arguing that trust, mistrust, & distrust are distinct:

Absolutely baffled by this suggested post from X this morning. Never followed or interacted with any right-wing accounts. Same thing happened twice last week as well...

People share news articles without reading them about 75% of the time according to a new study. People are especially more likely to share articles without clicking on them when they align with their politics. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #MisinfoResearch

Cool preprint creating "supernotes": LLM-generated community notes that synthesise info from several existing notes.

Very interesting, although it doesn't surprise me most people get science information from social media. So important for academic community to interact with the public on these platforms, especially when research is behind journo paywalls.

Not sure if many folks have seen this, but super interesting empirical evidence suggesting that X's algorithm was tweaked from mid-July to boost Republican-leaning accounts. Still in pre-print but very interesting and highly worth the read. (@timothyjgraham.bsky.social & Mark Andrejevic)