Matti Vuorre | Lightnews

Robert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · 5d

🚨 New draft 🚨

We built an LLM-enabled system to measure greenwashing scores in 1 million worldwide Facebook ads.

We found vast networks of Facebook pages sharing pro-fossil fuel messages & show that ads are targeted at left-leaning areas with fossil fuel investments.

Link: doi.org/10.48550/arX...

links of pages with connections to fossil fuel companies and similar types of climate change messaging

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 5d

The MSFT angry bird 🫡

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 5d

It's always sunny in philadelphia.

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 5d

Microdosing hot peppers! We need more science on this asap.

two police officers shake hands in front of a sign that says fx

ALT: two police officers shake hands in front of a sign that says fx

media.tenor.com

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 5d

For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, season 17 was very good. It brought back a lot of the elements from earlier seasons that made the show what it is (though not all the minor characters I'd have hoped for). I also appreciate the 8 episodes per season format--quality over quantity.

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 5d

Incredible dataviz.

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young @dannagal.bsky.social · 5d

Time for another episode of “bad data viz”

This one truly has me here thinking “Am I a Dolt?” What is this even saying??? Doesn’t WSJ have amazing talented staff skilled in data visualization? Like.. what is this?

Incomprehensible graph/picture about Rx use among kids

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young @dannagal.bsky.social · 5d

Time for another episode of “bad data viz”

This one truly has me here thinking “Am I a Dolt?” What is this even saying??? Doesn’t WSJ have amazing talented staff skilled in data visualization? Like.. what is this?

Bastian Jaeger @bxjaeger.bsky.social · 6d

It's easy to produce spurious findings:
A meaningless score based on irrelevant evaluations (“My relationship has very good Saturn”) was moderately related to common relationship measures (satisfaction, commitment) & predicted those measures 3 weeks later

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 6d

So 'working on files on my computer' <-> syncing with a cloud system (github et al.) -> archiving the files and directories (zenodo et al). It's not rocket science!

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 6d

I agree. This might have something to do with supporting "modular" research projects / publishing, but at the very least the UI does not help. I support using something called a 'file system' where projects can have 'directories' and 'files', and those can be easily shared & collaborated on :)

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 6d

This post highlights how far behind the OSF is in usability and speed. The ResearchBox UI does seem clean, but why not use Zenodo directly (RB archives to Zenodo anyway.)

Data Colada @datacolada.bsky.social · 6d

[130] Researchbox: Even easier to use than before. More transparently permanent.
datacolada.org/130

[130] ResearchBox: Even Easier to Use and More Transparently Permanent than Before - Data Colada

Over the past 10 years or so, posting data, code, and materials for published papers has gone from eccentric to mundane. There are a few platforms that enable sharing research files, including Researc...

datacolada.org

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 6d

Thanks!

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 6d

Time to stop doing non-open reviews or at least complain to the journal? That sucks.

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 6d

How strong is strong? Posteriors for 50% n=2,4,8,16 plz 🙏

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 6d

Yeah makes sense. Also probably 'sensitive' behaviors affected differently / for longer time. What if I just never tell the participants 🥸

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 6d

This episode reminded me of 2 things:

1. We know how & why the bootstrap works, but the fact that it does is just very cool.
2. Bayes. All that strapping (& which bias adjustment to choose) just goes away as unnecessary.

Quantitude the Podcast @quantitude.bsky.social · 15d

Join us tomorrow as we repeat ourselves.
Join us as we repeat ourselves tomorrow.
Tomorrow, we repeat ourselves. Join us!

Data Colada @datacolada.bsky.social · 6d

[130] Researchbox: Even easier to use than before. More transparently permanent.
datacolada.org/130

[130] ResearchBox: Even Easier to Use and More Transparently Permanent than Before - Data Colada

Over the past 10 years or so, posting data, code, and materials for published papers has gone from eccentric to mundane. There are a few platforms that enable sharing research files, including Researc...

datacolada.org

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 7d

Nice study! So the implication is to include a "warmup" period of ~5 days and use data only after that? Good to know.

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 7d

It's the 🤷 prior

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 7d

Yup the binomial posterior is the easiest example of prior = data. So here b(0.5, 0.5) is the same as observing previously a trial that was both a success and failure.

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 7d

Unknowing users accidentally adding a whole extra trial to the dataset!

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 7d

It's because all others data is 16/1000 but Bayes data is 16.5/1001 😉

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 8d

The most comprehensive dataset of video game play and psychological functioning available with CC0 license at zenodo.org/records/1760...

Tamas Andrei Foldes @sinandrei.bsky.social · 10d

We released a pretty cool dataset/preprint today looking at video game play, cognition, time-use and a ton of self-reported psych measures at osf.io/preprints/ps... with @nballou.bsky.social @matti.vuorre.com @thomashakman.bsky.social @rpsychologist.com and @shuhbillskee.bsky.social RRs coming soon

Survey administration schedule across the
12-week study period. Participants completed biweekly
surveys (orange) every two weeks, with US participants
additionally completing daily surveys (blue) for the first
30 days. Cognitive tests (green) were administered during
biweekly surveys at weeks 1, 5, and 9. Gray circles indicate
days with no scheduled surveys. Retention percentages
show the proportion of baseline participants (N=1978)
who were still active at each measurement week (defined
as having completed either a daily or biweekly survey at
any time after that week)

Diurnal play across Xbox, Nintendo, Steam.

Sample of daily gaming patterns and mental wellbeing for three representative participants. Stacked bars
represent total daily playtime across platforms. Orange line shows biweekly mental wellbeing scores (short WEMWBS)
measured at six study waves. Participants were selected from those closest to the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles of total
playtime, prioritizing those with the most varied multi-platform gaming behavior. Participant IDs: p9009984081 (25th
percentile), p8809196928 (50th percentile), p7162729307 (75th percentile)

Tamas Andrei Foldes @sinandrei.bsky.social · 10d

We released a pretty cool dataset/preprint today looking at video game play, cognition, time-use and a ton of self-reported psych measures at osf.io/preprints/ps... with @nballou.bsky.social @matti.vuorre.com @thomashakman.bsky.social @rpsychologist.com and @shuhbillskee.bsky.social RRs coming soon

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 12d

~40% of psyarxiv preprints contain links to open data in 2025 vs (e.g.) ~10% in 2019 (although in the latter case people mostly did not report this metadata): vuorre.com/psyarxiv-das...

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 12d

vuorre.com/psyarxiv-das... now shows tag co-occurrence networks for psyarxiv preprints. Useful for e.g. looking at what kinds of things people study in relation to social media (left) and technology (right).

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 13d

They are laughing at US!

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 13d

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwMV...

cf. www.scottaaronson.com/writings/jou...

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 13d

Yeah. It seems to me that granting agencies are making positive changes tho (suggesting/requiring preprints, diamond oa, etc.).

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 13d

Everyone involved in scientific publishing should take a look at these papers.

>"The domination of scientific publishing in the Global North by major commercial publishers is harmful to science; we need [...] to re-communalise publishing to serve science not the market."

Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 14d

We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below.

1. The four-fold drain
1.1 Money
Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for
whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who
created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis,
which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024
alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit
margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher
(Elsevier) always over 37%.
Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most
consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial
difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor &
Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American
researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The
Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3
billion in that year.

A figure detailing the drain on researcher time.

1. The four-fold drain

1.2 Time
The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce,
with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure
1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material
has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs,
grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for
profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time.
The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million
unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of
peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting
widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the
authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many
review demands.
Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of
scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in
‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow
progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to
volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier,
local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with
limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging
with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks
intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision.

A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below:

1. The four-fold drain
1.1 Money
Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for
whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who
created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis,
which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024
alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit
margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher
(Elsevier) always over 37%.
Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most
consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial
difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor &
Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American
researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The
Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3
billion in that year.

The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised
scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers
first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour
resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.

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