📣 Yale workshop, Oct 16-17! 📣 How could/should content ranking work? What's new in content moderation? How can platforms promote civility? Hosted by Yale's Institute for Foundations of Data Science (FDS). Great speakers! Submit posters by 9/22! Spread the word! yalefds.swoogo.com/socialalgori...

New in TiCS w @dgrand.bsky.social @gordpennycook.bsky.social It’s been ~10yrs since misinfo research exploded but our paradigms are stuck in the post-2016 “fake news” model Time for new approaches: o True/False → Content that misleads o Belief → Behavior o Eval interventions in ambiguous settings

🚨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 @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

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...

Nice blog post by @cameronmartel.bsky.social on our NHB paper showing fact-checker warnings work even for people who distrust fact-checkers. Particularly relevant re Meta's rollback of fact checking based (among other things) on claim that fact-checkers lost publics trust spsp.org/news/charact...

New WP! The illusory truth effect (repetition -> belief) is core to psych of beliefs, & thought to be a deep bias impacting misinfo, persuasion & advertising Why would cognition include such a flaw? We argue it is a rational adaptation to high-quality info environments 🧵1/

🚨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...

Three new articles discuss Meta’s decision to drop fact-checkers and shift to a "Community Notes" model, sparking concerns about misinformation. What's at stake? Here are three smart takes from experts. A short thread: 🧵

🚨OpEd+data: Meta is out of step with public opinion🚨 Zuck cut moderation b/c he said people no longer want it. But he's wrong! We polled 1k Americans and most people, including majority of Reps: i) want content moderation ii) don't want Community Notes w/o fact-checkers thehill.com/opinion/tech...

🚨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...

🚨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...

In a new article in Political Communication, @mattgraham.bsky.social and I study how to increase readership of fact-checks. It's hard! Social pressure, civic duty and small payments help; leveraging Party ID doesn't. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... Ungated: osf.io/preprints/os...

And here is a Research Briefing summary of our work in Nature Human Behaviour from myself & @dgrand.bsky.social : rdcu.be/dT3dq

🚨Out in Science!🚨 Conspiracy beliefs famously resist correction, ya? WRONG: We show brief convos w GPT4 reduce conspiracy beliefs by ~20%! -Lasts over 2mo -Works on entrenched beliefs -Tailored AI response rebuts specific evidence offered by believers www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Ungated link sites.dartmouth.edu/nyhan/files/...

🚨New in Nature Human Behaviour🚨 Will misinfo warning labels backfire for ppl who distrust fact-checkers? No! Labels reduce belief in & sharing of false news even for those highly distrusting of fact-checkers - warning labels are a key tool for platforms! rdcu.be/dSHtF

Harnessing the wisdom of high-quality online crowds could help scale up efforts to identify and intervene on #misinformation, @cameronmartel.bsky.social said.

📢POSTDOC OPPORTUNITY📢 Come join me Gord Pennycook and @tomcostello.bsky.social as we launch a research program using dialogues with LLMs as a tool to study human psychology and decision-making! Located at MIT or Cornell, and open applicants from all kinds of intellectual backgrounds/training!

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...

🚨New review🚨 Do warning labels on misinformation actually work? In Current Opinion in Psychology, @dgrand.bsky.social & I show that the answer is YES: warnings can reduce belief & sharing by ~25-50%! We also review moderators (eg more visible=bigger effect) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🚨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

🚨WP🚨 We test 9 online samples and find clear tradeoffs between attentiveness and representativeness - which sample is best depends on research q and priorities. For social/political qs I rec Bovitz/Lucid, for complex designs I rec Cloud/Prolific osf.io/preprints/ps...

🚨New WP🚨 Intuition favors belief in false claims. But why? @rorchinik.bsky.social argues its the result of rationally adaptative intuitions adjusting to low base rate of false claims in the US media environment Check out Reed's talk at SJDM on 11/18 9:10am! PDF: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Very happy to share a new working paper with some great coauthors! 97% of climate scientists agree that human-caused climate change is occurring. But how do people interpret this consensus? Is it a testament to expertise or a signal of bias? psyarxiv.com/ezua5/