This is coming up and I thought I'd boost it again with the little test tube icon: 🧪

New paper by @emilyspearing.bsky.social et al. out now in the Journal of Environmental Psychology Black Summer Arson: Examining the Impact of Climate Misinformation and Corrections on Reasoning doi.org/10.1016/j.je...

Happy to share a new paper (accepted at J Environ Psych), led by the amazing @emilyspearing.bsky.social Black Summer Arson: Examining the Impact of Climate Misinformation and Corrections on Reasoning osf.io/preprints/ps... @johnfocook.bsky.social @lewan.bsky.social @profsanderlinden.bsky.social

I hear a lot about misinformation as a "symptom" of "distrust". Here we test this & find that while trust is important, it doesn't buffer: misinfo isn't mitigated by high trust. Both misinfo & distrust *independently* predict vaccine denial. It's a disease of its own! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Having to go to some chatbot to get misinformation is such a waste of time. That's why we need to put this right in the browser so you can get your misinformation faster.

Published today: One of the biggest #science #communication studies to date. We asked 71,922 people in 68 countries how they #engage with information about #science and combined the data with several country-level factors: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #OpenAccess

Why Misinformation Must Not Be Ignored Quite proud of this paper, which just received the journal's APA Editor's Choice award 😊 Big thanks to my coauthors Li Qian Tay, Jon Roozenbeek, @profsanderlinden.bsky.social, John Cook, @naomioreskes.bsky.social, and @lewan.bsky.social

"The danger isn’t just the extreme cases — it’s the slow erosion of social trust" some informed opinions on this featuring experts in the space including @ulliecker.bsky.social @drdanieljolley.bsky.social

"Five tactics used by industry to undermine science. The disinformation playbook tactics are employed by industry during the scientific process and the science-based decision-making process" link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Honored to receive the Chancellor's Award for Research for this co-authored paper on the psychology of misinformation. It was really affirming to receive recognition for this research while the field is under attack and misinfo grants are being cancelled. 1/ www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Great ECR job opportunity on the project “A Unified Computational Model of How Humans Use Automated Advice”: external.jobs.uwa.edu.au/en/job/52075...

Happy to share our new research on AI-generated visual misinformation - we find that specific media literacy tips about AI images improve misinformation discernment over general tips about fake news. Feedback and comments welcome! doi.org/10.1186/s412... #psychsky #phdsky

AI summaries kill search traffic. This has been an obvious consequence of Google's AI summary strategy since its inception. Apparently the training data is so valuable that Google is willing to risk the neck of the goose that lays golden eggs. Screenshot: thebullshitmachines.com/lesson-9-blu...

A very important paper led by the phenomenal @lucy-h-butler.bsky.social Say it with me: Corrections. Of. Scientific. Misinformation. Are. Effective. @lewan.bsky.social @profsanderlinden.bsky.social @lkfazio.bsky.social @tobyprike.bsky.social @brionyswire.bsky.social @emilyspearing.bsky.social

🧵 THREAD: Why the Cato Institute’s new paper on “misinformation panic” is dangerously wrong, and why it completely misunderstands the real crisis we face. www.cato.org/policy-analy...

Very excited to see this out today - led by the fabulous @emilyspearing.bsky.social @lewan.bsky.social @brionyswire.bsky.social @tobyprike.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Hey Australia, let's stay out of this one, yeah?

I am privileged to announce the publication of the Anti-Autocracy Handbook: sks.to/autocracy 1/12

Thanks so much for a fabulous #sarmac2025, @ciaragreene.bsky.social @gillian-murphy.bsky.social! Many details made it such a joyess Irish-tinted celebration of the sarmac community. You're legends & we're immensely grateful ❤️ And I'm wildly proud of this lot too! (Thxs for putting up with me x)

Finally Mitch Dobbs on how correcting false claims can affect source credibility. Why do we see differences between politicians and doctors (corrections decrease trust in lying doctors but not politicians)? Possibly differences in initial trust. #sarmac2025 26/

Next is @ulliecker.bsky.social on misinformation spread in communication chains. Rather than look at transmission from one to many (eg social media), look at peer-to-peer transmission of misinformation corrections (game of telephone). #sarmac2025 21/

Next @emilyspearing.bsky.social on AI-generated misinformation, its influence and how to correct it. Expected more misinfo reliance in human and AI condition, inoculation would reduce beliefs, trust boost would increase belief and disclaimer would have no impact. #sarmac2025 24/

My latest column in Science went up yesterday doi.org/10.1126/scie... . I argue that “Knowledge is power”—or at least it was when Sir Francis Bacon coined this phrase in the 16th century. 1/n

Very pleased to be part of this next Wednesday at 11 am CET (10 am UK). Register here: www.socialchangelab.net/academicrepr... of possible interest to: @scibeh.bsky.social @karmaos.bsky.social @ulliecker.bsky.social @profsanderlinden.bsky.social @jagolinzer.bsky.social

Very glad to see this out: Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition Special Issue Misinformation: Current Directions and New Insights psycnet.apa.org/PsycARTICLES...

Coming soon, a special issue of #JARMAC on #Misinformation: Current Directions and New Insights, guest edited by Ulli Ecker. @apajournals.bsky.social

Glad to see this out! Misinformation-Based Beliefs Can Have Behavioral Consequences A commentray on a thought-provoking article on belief-behavior correspondence by @jgranadossamayoa.bsky.social & @dalbarra.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/eprint/ZC6SF...

Anything that stands in the way of the right-wing bullshit/propaganda machine is under attack — from the universities to non-profits to the rare online platform that manages to maintain some semblance of information integrity.

Decades of research suggest that authoritarian leaders and their admirers consistently share one thing in common: they twist the truth! Our OP-ED in @time.com today about how to fight harmful misinformation! And the need to speak out against it. More speech, not less! 💪 time.com/7282640/how-...

Manly man BS continues to pollute politics, pop culture, and the wellness woo industry. This science-free "manosphere" noise can do real social, physical, and psychological harm. See our recent CBC documentary: gem.cbc.ca/harder-bette... streaming on @cbcgem.bsky.social

Honest people don’t lie. Or do they? Liars aren’t honest. Or are they? One puzzling conundrum in contemporary politics is that politicians who seem to be estranged from facts and evidence are nonetheless considered honest by their followers. 1/n

Please share! Call for Research Collaborators: Cross-Cultural Study on the Continued Influence of Misinformation We invite researchers to join The Continued Influence Effect of Misinformation Across Cultures (CINEMAC) Mega-Study. More details here: forms.gle/o7mEYtZxFzsM...

I wrote this paper with @ulliecker.bsky.social & @johnfocook.bsky.social in 2016 (published in 2017; Beyond Misinformation: Understanding and Coping with the “Post-Truth” Era). At the time I thought I was being dystopian. Now, not so much. At least I didn't self-censor then. doi.org/10.1016/j.ja...

IU's Observatory on Social Media defends citizens from online manipulation – the opposite of censorship osome.iu.edu/research/blo...

My latest column just appeared in Science, entitled "Free speech, fact-checking, and the right to accurate information”. (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...) I use one of President Trump’s first executive orders to unpack the terrain between misinformation and claims to free speech 1/n

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

Health misinformation is way less of a problem if accurate information is easily accessible. Absence of info is a public health problem. Really worrying to see this healthjournalism.org/blog/2025/01...

Juste came across this interesting paper: repetition does not just cause "illusory truth" but also "illusory implications" -- people make inferences on the basis of familiar (illusory) information. @lkfazio.bsky.social @profsanderlinden.bsky.social @ulliecker.bsky.social doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

ABC, NBC & CBS dedicated about 16 minutes of airtime last night to the California wildfires without once mentioning climate change. Since the news failed do it's job, here's a short summary of the role of climate change and wildfire risk: www.noaa.gov/noaa-wildfir...

A fascinating debate overlapping philosophy, political science, media literacy, psychology etc. is how much and which kind of a problem is D/Misinformation. This article pushes back against the "misinformation research is overly alarmist" thesis dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0... #philsky #polisky #psycky

With 17 days to go until the US takeover by the new Trump (or Musk?) administration, I thought it might be worthwhile to share a number of recent papers published by our team that counter arguments that have been leveled against misinformation research. 1/n

Just coauthored a paper that says something which may seem obvious to many but still needs to be argued: why misinformation must not be ignored. Specifically we argue that 1) misinformation is prominent & 2) has a negative impact on people psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

Very glad to see this out in American Psychologist - Why misinformation should not be ignored. "We demonstrate that the prevalence of misinformation is nonnegligible ... and that misinformation has causal impacts on important beliefs and behaviors." psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-...

Feels like weird timing, but still glad to see this out: doi.org/10.1111/pops...

Today @ulliecker.bsky.social @lewan.bsky.social & I respond @lseimpactblog.bsky.social to critics of misinfo research & set the record straight: misinfo is (i) a cause of societal ills, (ii) prevalent, (iii) impacts behavior, & (iv) can often readily be identified! blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

Out today: Don’t believe them! Reducing misinformation influence through source discreditation rdcu.be/dRYbb

Out today: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Misinformation remains a threat to democracy. nature.com/articles/d41... @lewan.bsky.social @naomioreskes.bsky.social @profsanderlinden.bsky.social

Our review paper “Toolbox of individual-level interventions against online misinformation” is out today in Nature Human Behaviour! Truly a team effort by an international group of experts, led by the amazing Anastasia Kozyreva. www.nature.com/articles/s41...