Finally, @bjoernhommel.bsky.social's and my paper introducing the SurveyBot3000 is officially out in AMPPS. It's a fine-tuned language model that guesstimates correlations between survey items from text alone. Not perfectly, but useful for search, for example. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

🤬 „Merkel zeigt, Frauen gehören nicht in die Politik!“, Aussagen wie diese gehören zu den über eine Million Tweets aus den Jahren 2015-2018, die ein Forschungsteam der #unigraz rund um @hailina.bsky.social und @janalasser.bsky.social analysiert hat. Was gegen Online-Hass hilft, liest du hier 👇

Misinformation research has a causality problem: lab experiments are limited; observational studies confounded. We used causal inference on 9.9M tweets, quantifying effects in the wild while blocking backdoor paths. Does misinfo get higher engagement? Are following discussions more emotional? 🧵

My lab is looking for a Senior Scientist (= PostDoc with option of permanency)! We are looking for someone interested in doing cutting-edge computational social science + helping us with data & software engineering 🤓. See job ad for details jobs.uni-graz.at/en/jobs/7d14...

#DataMethods #OpenScience #GESISMethodsHub: An open portal for computational social science research—find tools, tutorials, and code, directly usable in your browser. Methods Hub makes it easy to learn, apply, and reproduce computational methods in the Social Sciences. methodshub.gesis.org/#DataMethods#OpenScience#GESISMethodsHub:

Open Science Professor ship at HU Berlin www.academics.de/jobs/w2-prof...

I talked to 15 teachers/professors about how AI and ChatGPT is ruining their lives: www.404media.co/teachers-are...

Ein großes Problem für den Kampf gegen #Machtmissbrauch ist der Mangel an verlässlichen Daten. Umso wichtiger ist die Forschung so engagierter Wissenschaftler*innen wie @leising.bsky.social @janalasser.bsky.social oder Andrea Kübler. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Kanzler gewählt. Dann können wir uns jetzt wieder mit #Machtmissbrauch in der Wissenschaft beschäftigen... #IchBinHanna #IchBinTina @leising.bsky.social @janalasser.bsky.social @amreibahr.bsky.social @netzwerkmawi.bsky.social

Fuck Harry Potter Go read the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovich It gives the same Britishness, sense of history, and magical powers, but with a setting of detectives and mysteries, and the characters from marginalized backgrounds are fully developed, not just caricatures.

We are advertising a permanent senior lecturer position teaching Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Vienna! Please forward to anyone interested. jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Senior-L...

Love this. In his “I Agree” installation Dima Yarovinsky-Yahel took the content from terms of service statements for companies like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Tinder and printed them out on A4 paper with a standard font size for legal contracts to demonstrate the length of these agreements.

Have you ever asked yourself about the overall extent of TikTok? Here some numbers from "Just Another Hour on TikTok" - Great compliment to @bendavidsteel.bsky.social for this data collection effort! w/ @miriamschirmer.bsky.social & Derek Ruths arxiv.org/abs/2504.13279

If you have a #quarto #rstats pandoc workflow, and need to create a track-changes version of your revised paper for resubmission, try pandiff, which can do that for you for docx, pdf, and html 🧪 github.com/davidar/pand... You'll first need to install Node and npm: nodejs.org/en/download

🇺🇸 Eine Auswertung von acht Millionen politischen Reden unter Beteiligung der #unigraz zeigt: Nie zuvor wurde im US-Kongress so viel nach persönlichen Überzeugungen argumentiert – und so wenig nach #Fakten: 🔗 www.uni-graz.at/de/neuigkeit... #weworkfortomorrow #universityofgraz

🚨🤖👥 Webinar "Collective Intelligence in the era of LLMs" April 24 5-6pm CET www.hacid-project.eu/hacid-webina... Register nesta.zoom.us/meeting/regi... Speakers: - Jason Burton, Copenhagen Business School - Lucie Flek, University of Bonn - Nikolas Zöller, Max Planck Institute for Human Development

I try to be clear: We may still need to figure out some mechanisms, but there is enough evidence that it is high time for the public to take back control of the online environment, be it through data access, the development of alternatives or through regulation. But we need to take this seriously!

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

Would you present your next NeurIPS paper in Europe instead of traveling to San Diego (US) if this was an option? Søren Hauberg (DTU) and I would love to hear the answer through this poll: (1/6)

>>New open access publication<< With @laurensnaudts.bsky.social as a lead author, we discuss how with the arrival of the DSA we should pay more critical (regulatory) attention to optimization logics, which permeate and shape the entire stack of digital services. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Very glad to start our teaching activities as a team next week. Offering different aspects of computational social science at @tudresden.bsky.social at the sociology and computer science departments: css-synosys.github.io/teaching/

Are you an internationally-minded researcher? We just opened the 2025 call for Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Staff Exchanges: 🔹 12-month secondments for knowledge & skills exchange 🔹 €97.7 million for some 85 research projects 🔹 International collaboration in innovation Apply by 8 October!

A friend and colleague at my lab (the CS² under @janalasser.bsky.social ) is organizing a super nice school on democracy and social media here in Graz! If you're interested, check it out and share! Link: sicss.io/2025/graz/

Algorithmus-Forscherin @janalasser.bsky.social im Interview von @claudiazettel.bsky.social futurezone.at/science/soci...

This is a good and useful essay about AI and society. Recommended, as is the thread below.

Tesla Model 3 crushed by an Olmec statue By Mexican sculptor @chavismarmol.bsky.social

When a woman is empowered, the world is empowered.💜️ #InternationalWomensDay

Kickoff meeting for the project "Leaky blood-brain barrier in major depressive disorder" funded by @fwf-at.bsky.social and @dfg.de and in collaboration with Dr. Barbara Di Benedetto @dibenedetto-lab.bsky.social. Thanks for hosting @ghanendra.bsky.social and myself in Regensburg 🙏

This promises to be an interesting event: Wednesday 9 April, 6pm-7pm at Club Alpbach in London.

A Seattle Times op-ed summarizing a few of the arguments from my UW talk this week: "To understand right-wing media's power, study improv and theater of influencers." I end with some recommendations for countering the right's bullshit machine: www.seattletimes.com/opinion/to-u...

There is no rock bottom below which Trump & Vance won't find another basement. This whole event is disgusting and contemptible. (By the way, for clarification, I am being reasonable when I say this because my response is calibrated to the gravity of the situation. Being anodyne is not reasonable).

"Information Architectures: A Framework for Understanding Socio-Technical Systems" is in press at npj Complexity. Normally I might wait until publication to share, but given the relevance to our rapidly-changing world, it seemed worth sharing now. osf.io/preprints/so...

Soziale Netzwerke als demokratische Kraft retten - unsere Petition #SaveSocial sucht als nächsten Meilenstein 2 hoch 18 Unterschriften! Bist du dabei? weact.campact.de/petitions/sa... #sharingiscaring

Your dignity honors the bravery of the Ukrainian people. Be strong, be brave, be fearless. You are never alone, dear President Zelenskyy. We will continue working with you for a just and lasting peace.

Feb 28 “will go into the history books as one of the grimmest days in American diplomacy, the beginning of a long-term disaster that every American,every U.S. ally,and anyone who cares about the future of democracy will have to endure.” @radiofreetom.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

When the autocratic past becomes frighteningly relevant: Vera Kempe, one our panelists at today's workshop on Science under Autocracy www.scibeh.org/events/works... has recorded her experiences in USSR and East Germany here: substack.com/home/post/p-.... She offers some recommendations, too.

📣 Are you an early/mid-career scholar or practitioner passionate about #Democracy and the #RuleofLaw in Europe? Apply now for the re:constitution Fellowship 2025/2026! 📆 Deadline: 3 April at 12 noon (CEST)! We offer 15 Fellowships in two tracks. All info: www.reconstitution.eu/en/news/news...

Übrigens gibt es eine Reihe von Stellungnahmen zum Referentenentwurf des Hochschulstärkungsgesetzes NRW. Geplant sind auch Maßnahmen gegen Machtmissbrauch. Hier möchte ich den aktuellen Stand dokumentieren. Ausführlich: www.linkedin.com/posts/sophia... #IchbinTina #IchbinHanna #IchbinReyhan 1/x

We have now finalized our program for this workshop on Tuesday 25 February 3pm-6pm UK time. Check out the fantastic lineup, program, and link to registration here: www.scibeh.org/events/works.... Of interest to @standupforscience.bsky.social @reacpolrn.bsky.social Registration closes Monday COB UK.

🎉Microsoft Research New England is hiring a predoctoral research assistant to work with @nancybaym.bsky.social, Tarleton Gillespie, and @marylgray.bsky.social on issues related to the dynamics of technology and society. 🎉 socialmediacollective.org/2025/01/22/s...

New study from @csh.ac.at debunks claims of bias against conservative news outlets by @newsguard.bsky.social csh.ac.at/news/newsgua... With @julaluehring.bsky.social @hannahmetzler.bsky.social @janalasser.bsky.social #misinformation #mediabias #trustworthiness #newsguard

NEW: The US is in the midst of a political coup that, if successful, would forever change the nature of its government, writes Eryk Salvaggio. But this coup is not taking place in the streets. It's taking place cubicle by cubicle in federal agencies and in the mundane automation of bureaucracy.

We took X to court. And we won! ⚖️ The courts ruled that X must urgently grant us access to their publicly available data via their API. This access is critical for our analysis of online public discourse ahead of the upcoming German elections. Read: bit.ly/4gBWGp4 Here's what's happened 1/3 👇

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)

New from me: Does AI market volatility give Europe a fleeting chance to compete? The truth: Europe was never in the race on US giants’ terms. Instead of magical thinking or an unsustainable spending race, the EU must face reality—this game was rigged from the start www.ips-journal.eu/work-and-dig...

If your research could be affected by such policies, you can use OSF or similar services to post a preprint with a CC-BY license to ensure it is accessible to everyone: osf.io/preprints OSF is open source, free-to-use, and maintained by @cos.io a 501(c)3 charity.

Princeton-area scientists, there will be a teach-in, Tuesday February 4, 4:30-6:30pm, to give everyone basic knowledge on what is happening to science, to individual rights, and to the federal government. Target audience: faculty, graduate students, postdocs, staff. In-person only. Ask around.

Arguably the biggest national security breach in U.S. history. Private employees downloading personnel data on every federal employee and tax and social security data on every American onto private unsecured servers. Needless to say, completely illegal and subject to major prison sentences.

I’m watching closely for anything happening inside BLS, Census and the other federal statistical agencies. Know something? Reach out — anonymity guaranteed. Signal: bencasselman.96