Experiencing Kathy Cramer's fantastic book "Talking about Politics" firsthand in the local Caribou, with a group of older gentlemen discussing current events passionately and loudly as I answer emails.

Happy to report that APA wrote this letter, gathered a coalition across science, and will now pay for ads for it to be disseminated in Science and Chronicle of Higher Ed to spread the word!! unitedsciencealliance.org

BBC just released damning research on AI assistants' news accuracy. Results: 51% of AI responses had significant issues. 19% introduced errors when citing BBC. 13% misquoted or made up BBC content entirely. 🤐🤐 www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/... via @ezraeeman.bsky.social

The National Science Foundation has canceled all grant review panels this week. It's unclear how long the pause could last.

EU medicines agency quits X & moves to Bluesky "EMA will no longer post updates and content on X. We believe the X platform no longer suits our communication needs” the agency said in a statement www.reuters.com/world/europe...

Now publicly available: the #TISP dataset. It contains 71,922 survey responses on public perceptions of science, science communication, and climate change attitudes in 68 countries. Published in @natureportfolio.bsky.social’s #ScientificData: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 📊

Just published on APSR First View: "Curation Bubbles" by Jon Green, Stefan McCabe, Sarah Shugars, Hanyu Chwe, Luke Horgan, Shuyang Cao, David Lazer. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/curation-bubbles/EBEBDE88633A86DFC821FE86B7708BB3

New! Oxford researchers @oiioxford.bsky.social outline recommendations for studying the impact of artificial intelligence on young people’s mental health: bit.ly/3WRtpzV. #artificialintelligence #screentime #children #mentalhealth

Remember this? A problem we didn't have in automated speech recognition tools until OpenAI decided they were going to do away with alignment (not the kind that so-called "AI safety" people do)? And they're giving us "artificial general intelligence" any day now right? apnews.com/article/ai-a...

Important question: when and which political parties lie? This new publication is pretty clear in its findings: radical-right populism is the strongest determinant for the propensity to spread misinformation. Based on an analysis of 32 million tweets in 26 countries. doi.org/10.1177/1940...

🚨In Nature🚨 Meta is dropping fact-checking to avoid anti-conservative bias- but is there actually evidence of bias? We this test empirically & find that conservatives * ARE suspended more * BUT share more misinfo So suspension isn't necessarily evidence of bias www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New publication: Our analysis suggests in health journalists’ COVID-19 tweets, first-person pronouns, moral appeals, and negative emotions increase engagement, while politicized language reduces it. Huge thanks to my amazing advisor @ekvraga.bsky.social and my fantastic collaborator Yuming Fang.

Community Notes don't work by themselves. So many things don't get labeled because people don't reach "consensus" on them, which is really what Community Notes optimize for, not factuality What an utter failure. So disappointing

My first tweet of 2025: 🚨 Publication alert 🚨 led by my awesome graduate student @ritatang.bsky.social! We examine how health journalists tweeted about COVID-19, exploring which tweets get the most engagement. HINT: not politicized language! Free link here: www.tandfonline.com/eprint/SCCK2...

"Every health department staff member, former staff member, public health official and vaccine expert contacted by NPR repeated the scientific consensus that vaccines are safe, effective, and essential for preventing illness, hospitalizations, and deaths." www.npr.org/sections/sho...

Out now - National Academies consensus report on Understanding and Addressing Misinformation About Science 🧪 It was a privilege to serve as one of the 15 committee members from a wide range of scientific disciplines who put this report together. Quick 🧵1/ www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/und...

Avian flu virus has been found in raw milk − a reminder of how pasteurization protects health

A charming example of how politics can work, and a reminder for anyone who thinks their vote doesn't count. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/18/u...

#Publichealth data shows #vaccines have saved 154 million+ lives worldwide over the past 50 yrs. A biochemist breaks down how claims by RFK Jr. about vaccine safety & effectiveness are inaccurate: https://buff.ly/3ZE7Kvn (Mark R. O'Brian, University at Buffalo) 🩺🧪#episky #measles #mumps #polio

In this new article in American Psychologist we respond to critics in detail and clarify two key points for the field; (1) The prevalence of misinformation in society is substantial when properly defined. (2) Misinformation causally impacts attitudes and behaviors. psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

I have no words to express my sorrow and horror.... This happened in my hometown, as it has in way too many others. www.npr.org/2024/12/16/g...

Private company buys a public good. A few years go by and the company decides the public good is no longer worthwhile; the public suffers as a result. This story arc is way too common in modern society. deadline.com/2024/12/max-...

Can we reduce polarization with empathy? Just published a new (replication) study with @mrooduijn.bsky.social and Matthijs Gillissen showing that different components of empathy have quite different effects [1/5] www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

New publication (4+ years in the making): “The Diffusion and Reach of (Mis)Information on Facebook”. shorturl.at/VE2fU We analyze the propagation of 1B+ posts across content moderation regimes, with @davidlazer.bsky.social @jatucker.bsky.social @taliastroud.bsky.social @annenbergpenn.bsky.social

Some good news for Minnesotans: we're already at the earliest sunsets of the year, and the sun will start setting later in the next week. As the article says, "there’s more light at the end of the wintry tunnel each day" www.mprnews.org/story/2024/1...

David is right. Converse (writing about the 1950s) and Lipmann (writing about the 1910s) described swing voters in similar terms. And I think the lesson now (as then) is that you don't win them over by writing the right policy position paper.

Another reason why vaccines are awesome.

I'm really enjoying how well this group is combining great work in public safety with light-hearted fun.

Join us! SMPA's hiring an Asst. Prof of political communication, with a focus on uses and/or effects of digital media for democracy, governance, and/or civic society. This position is aligned with GW's Institute for Data, Democracy, & Politics. www.gwu.jobs/postings/116... #polcom #commsky #polisky

So proud of the great work happening in Minneapolis, which shows that boosting housing supply helps make homes more affordable.

Now out in @science.org: misinformation exploits outrage to spread online. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Doing this work was way harder than it had to be, thanks to Big Tech. I want to highlight our lead analyst @killianmcloughlin.bsky.social for his heroic perseverance to bring you this paper 🧵

Online influencers need ‘urgent’ fact-checking training, warns Unesco

Denver gave people experiencing homelessness $1k/month. A year later, nearly half had housing. They also had fewer ER visits, nights spent in a hospital, and jail stays. The report estimates that this reduction in public service use SAVED the city $589k. www.businessinsider.com/denver-basic...

New paper: Do social media algorithms shape affective polarization? We ran a field experiment on X/Twitter (N=1,256) using LLMs to rerank content in real-time, adjusting exposure to polarizing posts. Result: Algorithmic ranking impacts feelings toward the political outgroup! 🧵⬇️

Nice to see the "strain" we are all feeling in journal review requests quantified.

Bird flu, a virus that can also affect humans, has been discovered in a batch of raw milk sold in California store refrigerators, state regulators said Sunday. It comes just a few days after a child tested positive for bird flu for the first time in U.S. history.

In 2019, 70% of Republicans said science has had a mostly positive effect on society. Recently, fewer than half of Republicans (47%) said so. www.pewresearch.org/science/2023... 🧪🌐

Check out what Ruth Palmer, @ekvraga.bsky.social and I have to say about the need for happy election news and why these stories were hard to find before Election Day. 🔗 www.electionanalysis.ws/us/president...

When we talk about the costs of American health care, let's make sure to add the hours spent negotiating between doctors, dentists, hospitals, & insurance companies to get a needed procedure. And this is for someone lucky enough to have insurance!

This is so cynical and awful.

Serious Q: how can one stay sufficiently informed while also staying at least moderately sane??? I need a long-term strategy.

Hot off the presses: our team's analysis of several prominent rumors spreading on social media over the last few days about voting and election administration: uwcip.substack.com/p/rapid-rese...

The Atlantic endorsement was 🔥🔥🔥, especially "And if you’re one of the many Americans who can’t stand politics and just want to opt out, remember that under democracy, inaction is also an action... (1/2)

Tim Walz: "Get that person who says, 'Oh, I'm just not really into politics.' Too damn bad! Politics is into you."

Took one day off from the news yesterday as a mental health break. And came back to this?? It's insanity. I have no words.

Finally published in @poqjournal.bsky.social: Partisanship and Older Americans’ Engagement with Dubious Political News. I think stronger partisanship that comes with age and methodological differences between study types can explain a lot in this space. academic.oup.com/poq/advance-...

This is just fantastic.

A great thread with some excellent articles particularly relevant right now.

“It's not unusual for politicians of both parties to mislead, exaggerate or make stuff up. But American fact-checkers have never encountered a politician who shares Trump’s disregard for factual accuracy.” www.politifact.com/article/2024...

A smart analysis of Musk's blatantly illegal efforts to buy the election for Trump. davekarpf.substack.com/p/turns-out-...