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rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥
@rensec.bsky.social
1.6K followers 1.2K following 610 posts

Sociologist at Utrecht University, NL, studying cooperation, trust, social networks, social media, platform economy, using computational social science and experimental methods. I mostly follow academics.
Also: @[email protected] .. more

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Physics 19%
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rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 1d
Attention #computationalsocialscience researchers! Data donation has become one of the few methods to independently collect digital platforms data. The proposed GDPR Omnibus amendment threatens to make such research impossible. Please sign the open letter: dsa40collaboratory.eu/open-letter-...
Open Letter: Omnibus – DSA 40 Collaboratory
dsa40collaboratory.eu

Reposted by Rense Corten

jonicoleman.bsky.social
Joni Coleman @jonicoleman.bsky.social · 2d
No, YOU'RE crying on the train into work...
xkcd.com/3172/
Fifteen Years
xkcd.com

Reposted by Jonathan Portes, Cas Mudde, Ben H. Ansell , and 72 more

rutgerbregman.com
Rutger Bregman @rutgerbregman.com · 2d
I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.

They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Reposted by Philip N. Cohen, Karen Benjamin Guzzo, Michael Pollard , and 1 more

tristanbridges.bsky.social
TristanBridges.bsky.social @tristanbridges.bsky.social · 3d
Baby names aren’t just personal choices; they reflect culture, geography, gender, identity, and as i've been investigating, politics too. I’ve been analyzing 50 years of U.S. baby naming to see how they map onto political polarization in the U.S.
Here’s what I found 🧵

Reposted by Lawrence F. Katz, Simon Burgess, Dan Goldhaber , and 9 more

qjeharvard.bsky.social
The Quarterly Journal of Economics @qjeharvard.bsky.social · 4d
Recently accepted by #QJE, “Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Determinants and Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges,” by Chetty (@Oppinsights), Deming, and Friedman: doi.org/10.1093/qje/...
Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Determinants and Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges*
Abstract. We use anonymized admissions data from several colleges linked to income tax records and SAT and ACT test scores to study the determinants and ca
doi.org

Reposted by Rense Corten

cdteu.org
CDT Europe @cdteu.org · 8d
Today the European Commission unveiled its Digital Omnibus Package, reopening and weakening core parts of the EU’s digital rulebook, including crucial safeguards in the AI Act. This is a seriously concerning shift for rights and accountability in Europe.

cdt.org/insights/cdt...
CDT Europe’s Statement on the Digital Omnibus Package
On 19 November, the European Commission published the Digital Omnibus Package; a twinset of proposals suggesting amendments to crucial laws underpinning the EU digital rulebook, including the General ...
cdt.org

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 9d
Glad it was useful 😉

Reposted by Paul E. Johnson, Anders Nilsson, Juan Cole , and 7 more

jamellebouie.net
jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 9d
it is almost as if accommodating and conceding to far right ideas legitimizes them and signals to voters that the far right is a legitimate choice for governance
markmcgeoghegan.bsky.social Mark McGeoghegan @markmcgeoghegan.bsky.social · 9d
The Danish Social Democrats are currently on course for their worst election result since at least the Second World War, despite their brand of far-right accommodationism being touted as a blueprint for other centre-left parties.

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 9d
Correct link (without typo) to the blog by Cox: tinyurl.com/28taeyet
The State of American Friendship: Change, Challenges, and Loss - The Survey Center on American Life
The May 2021 American Perspectives Survey finds that Americans report having fewer close friendships than they once did, talking to their friends less often, and relying less on their friends for pers...
tinyurl.com

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 9d
This was right after I finished my dissertation, so a sudden decrease is more likely!
Correct link to the blog by Cox: tinyurl.com/28taeyet
The State of American Friendship: Change, Challenges, and Loss - The Survey Center on American Life
The May 2021 American Perspectives Survey finds that Americans report having fewer close friendships than they once did, talking to their friends less often, and relying less on their friends for pers...
tinyurl.com

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 9d
7/7 In conclusion, although this is an elegant and theoretically interesting model, if the empirical premise of its explanation for polarization does not hold, I'm not sure what to make of it.

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 9d
6/7 Finally, such a marked increase in connectivity cause by social media is not known in the (sociological) literature on personal networks, nor does it show up in other data sources (e.g., tinyurl.com/28taeyet)%3E Indeed, this would have been remarkable discovery, worthy of a paper in itself!
The State of American Friendship: Change, Challenges, and Loss - The Survey Center on American Life
The May 2021 American Perspectives Survey finds that Americans report having fewer close friendships than they once did, talking to their friends less often, and relying less on their friends for pers...
tinyurl.com

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 9d
5/7 Most of the "transition" around 2008 seems driven by the fact that almost all data points before and after are based on different measurement instruments, respectively name generators ("with whom did you discuss...?") and asking for aggregated numbers ("how many close friends do you have?")

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 9d
4/7 The data sources for some of the data points are rather unclear. For example, to my knowledge, core discussion networks were not measured in the GSS after 2010 but they are reported in the Figure. Also some other data points (e.g., for Norway and Germany) are attributed to the wrong data sources

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 9d
3/7 The supposed "transition" in connectivity around 2008 is based on the data points of 4 countries, but then compared to polarization in only the US. If one would take only the US data points for connectivity too, the transition is much less clear

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 9d
2/7 The selection of countries is strangely selective, focusing only on the US and North-West Europe

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 9d
This is a very interesting paper but the empirical evidence presented for an increase in connectivity (in their Fig. 1E) is rather problematic. A little thread 👇(1/7):
pnas.org Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences @pnas.org · 21d
Is it possible that social media, which promised to connect the world, instead increased polarization? A model of human social dynamics predicts a sharp transition into a polarized state above a certain threshold of social connectivity. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/Gym350XnNW8
Conceptual image showing a hand reaching out to a network of people icons. Stock photo.

Reposted by Rense Corten

odissei.bsky.social
ODISSEI @odissei.bsky.social · 10d
Kiesraad published a pre-release of the 2025 election results, but the data isn't analysis-friendly.

Our @odissei-soda.bsky.social team turned it into an easy-to-use database for researchers. It’s open data and ready to explore. Download & code 👉 github.com/sodascience/...

Reposted by Rense Corten

silkelschneider.bsky.social
Silke Schneider @silkelschneider.bsky.social · 14d
Job Opportunity! We're looking for a post-doc or late doc to join our team at @gesis.org and @konsortswd.bsky.social (hi @nfdi.de)! You'll work on enhancing comparability of German survey data across projects & disciplines. Strong German skills & interest in social structure required. Check it out:
Details
GESIS Leibniz Institut für Sozialwissenschaften
www.gesis.org

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 15d
Following up on this: should we start new journals (which creates huge coordination problems) or try to wrangle our beloved top journals out of the hands of the big publishers? Are there any good examples/strategies for the latter?

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 16d
Thanks for rubbing it in...

Reposted by Rense Corten

uuplants.bsky.social
UU Plants @uuplants.bsky.social · 16d
We are beyond excited to reveal the full line-up for our Environmental Signaling in Plants summer school 2026!

Registration is now open here eps.sites.uu.nl - we look forward to seeing you in Utrecht on 24th-26th August!
13th Utrecht PhD Summer School​ Environmental Signaling in Plants Aug 24-26 2026 Speakers: Laura Ragni, Roeland Berendsen, Mariana Silva Artur, Matthew Paul, Ari Sadanandom, Beatrice Giuntoli, Bruno Guillotin, Priya Ramakrishna, Caroline Gutjahr, Niko Geldner, Laura Bacete and Marcel Beukeboom.

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 16d
Sure, I don't think these are conflicting views. *If* the data allow for a causal interpretation, all the better. My point was rather that even if they don't, that doesn't mean we cannot learn anything about causality at all (which seems a common position in some circles, but I don't mean you)

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 16d
How I've always understood the logic of observational research is that we test (and try to falsify) predictions about correlations that we should observe in the data, given our *causal* theory. We don't infer causality from correlations, but the other way round!

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, Colin F. Camerer, Ben C. Sheldon , and 35 more

hansonmark.bsky.social
Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 16d
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.

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 19d
Et tu, Cornell?

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 20d
Daarnaast hoort een beoordelaar in goede collegiale verhoudingen ook niet "bang" te zijn voor een examencommissie (zeg ik als lid van de examencommissie), hoewel ik snap dat je geen zin hebt in gedoe.

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 20d
M.i. hoort een 10 niet voor een platonische "perfecte scriptie" te zijn, maar voor een werkstuk dat geheel voldoet aan de beoordelingscriteria (wat best zeldzaam mag zijn). Als het voor een (menselijke) student theoretisch onmogelijk is aan de criteria te voldoen, dan kloppen die criteria dus niet.

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 20d
Waarom geen 10 voor scripties?

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 20d
Maar het probleem daarmee is weer dat de criteria per universiteit verschillen, net als de regelingen rond herkansingen etc (wat potentieel weer effect heeft op de cijfers). Het vergroot bovendien kunstmatig het verschil tussen mensen net onder en boven de streep. Ook afschaffen wmb dus.