Sol Messing
@solmg.bsky.social
Social Scientist/Research Prof at NYU CSMaP, formerly Twitter. http://solomonmg.github.io
Reposted by Sol Messing
Next up on my reading list.
…I am already regretting this choice.
…I am already regretting this choice.
October 14, 2025 at 11:27 PM
Next up on my reading list.
…I am already regretting this choice.
…I am already regretting this choice.
Reposted by Sol Messing
How common are “survey professionals” - people who take dozens of online surveys for pay - across online panels, and do they harm data quality?
Our paper, FirstView at @politicalanalysis.bsky.social, tackles this question using browsing data from three U.S. samples (Facebook, YouGov, and Lucid):
Our paper, FirstView at @politicalanalysis.bsky.social, tackles this question using browsing data from three U.S. samples (Facebook, YouGov, and Lucid):
October 7, 2025 at 6:49 PM
How common are “survey professionals” - people who take dozens of online surveys for pay - across online panels, and do they harm data quality?
Our paper, FirstView at @politicalanalysis.bsky.social, tackles this question using browsing data from three U.S. samples (Facebook, YouGov, and Lucid):
Our paper, FirstView at @politicalanalysis.bsky.social, tackles this question using browsing data from three U.S. samples (Facebook, YouGov, and Lucid):
TODAY Aug 28 - "Politics in 60 Seconds: Short-Form Video, TikTok, and Political Communication" at #APSA2025 -
2 PM, VCC West Ballroom B
Chair: @eunjikim.bsky.social. Discussant: @mollyeroberts.bsky.social
2 PM, VCC West Ballroom B
Chair: @eunjikim.bsky.social. Discussant: @mollyeroberts.bsky.social
September 11, 2025 at 6:26 PM
TODAY Aug 28 - "Politics in 60 Seconds: Short-Form Video, TikTok, and Political Communication" at #APSA2025 -
2 PM, VCC West Ballroom B
Chair: @eunjikim.bsky.social. Discussant: @mollyeroberts.bsky.social
2 PM, VCC West Ballroom B
Chair: @eunjikim.bsky.social. Discussant: @mollyeroberts.bsky.social
Spoiler alert: the answer is “no”
More elected officials need to read this paper: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
September 5, 2025 at 2:59 PM
Spoiler alert: the answer is “no”
Maybe let’s not dismantle the tenure system while admin and athletic budgets balloon
AAUP President Todd Wolfson denounces planned academic cuts at the University of Oregon, laying out several concerns.
@uauoregon.bsky.social
🧵
@uauoregon.bsky.social
🧵
AAUP President Denounces Planned Cuts at the University of Oregon
The AAUP stands with the United Academics of the University of Oregon in protesting the administration's plan to slash multiple departments and programs and fire faculty.
www.aaup.org
August 28, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Maybe let’s not dismantle the tenure system while admin and athletic budgets balloon
Reposted by Sol Messing
New from me about Grok's very bad week, with insight from @solmg.bsky.social. www.engadget.com/ai/how-exact...
How exactly did Grok go full 'MechaHitler?'
After Grok took a hard turn toward antisemitic earlier this week, many are probably left wondering how something like that could even happen.
www.engadget.com
July 10, 2025 at 3:36 PM
New from me about Grok's very bad week, with insight from @solmg.bsky.social. www.engadget.com/ai/how-exact...
🧵 NEW PAPER - "Quantifying Narrative Similarity Across Languages" is live at SMR. We combine NLP w pairwise LLM evals to track ideas across media ecosystems and languages. We also figured out a way to eval unsupervised probs on widely understood supervised performance metrics.
June 20, 2025 at 2:20 PM
🧵 NEW PAPER - "Quantifying Narrative Similarity Across Languages" is live at SMR. We combine NLP w pairwise LLM evals to track ideas across media ecosystems and languages. We also figured out a way to eval unsupervised probs on widely understood supervised performance metrics.
Reposted by Sol Messing
I am thrilled to share a new article in Sociological Methods & Research, “Quantifying Narrative Similarity Across Languages”. My co-first author Sol Messing and our collaborators developed a new approach to measuring “narrative similarity” between texts: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Quantifying Narrative Similarity Across Languages - Hannah Waight, Solomon Messing, Anton Shirikov, Margaret E. Roberts, Jonathan Nagler, Jason Greenfield, Megan A. Brown, Kevin Aslett, Joshua A. Tuck...
How can one understand the spread of ideas across text data? This is a key measurement problem in sociological inquiry, from the study of how interest groups sh...
journals.sagepub.com
June 18, 2025 at 3:56 PM
I am thrilled to share a new article in Sociological Methods & Research, “Quantifying Narrative Similarity Across Languages”. My co-first author Sol Messing and our collaborators developed a new approach to measuring “narrative similarity” between texts: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Important corrective paper and solid work from @cbarrie.bsky.social: don't mistake game simulations as evidence of intelligence if the game is in the training data.
🤖💡 Are LLMs really developing social behaviors—or just reproducing familiar patterns from training? In our new paper, @pettertornberg.com and I take a closer look at recent claims of emergent conventions in AI and offer a different perspective... 🧵
June 3, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Important corrective paper and solid work from @cbarrie.bsky.social: don't mistake game simulations as evidence of intelligence if the game is in the training data.
Reposted by Sol Messing
1/ I am excited to share my new article with Adam Goldstein in the American Journal of Sociology. We harmonized a set of historical public opinion data from 1966-2013 to investigate the shifting bases of inequality perceptions in the United States. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
The Polarization of Inequality Perceptions in the New Gilded Age | American Journal of Sociology: Vol 0, No ja
www.journals.uchicago.edu
June 1, 2025 at 11:15 PM
1/ I am excited to share my new article with Adam Goldstein in the American Journal of Sociology. We harmonized a set of historical public opinion data from 1966-2013 to investigate the shifting bases of inequality perceptions in the United States. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
Join us as a research engineer @ CSMAP.
1. Collaborate on deploying and fine-tuning LLMs/LMs - build your AI chops
2. Big compute resources and data infra already in place
3. Access to largest social data collections on earth
4. Smart & teched up co-workers who know their isht
1. Collaborate on deploying and fine-tuning LLMs/LMs - build your AI chops
2. Big compute resources and data infra already in place
3. Access to largest social data collections on earth
4. Smart & teched up co-workers who know their isht
💡 Ever wondered how social media and digital technology shapes our democracy?
Join our team @CSMaP_NYU as a Research Engingeer and help us build the tools that power cutting-edge research on the digital public sphere.
🚀 Apply now!
apply.interfolio.com/165833
Join our team @CSMaP_NYU as a Research Engingeer and help us build the tools that power cutting-edge research on the digital public sphere.
🚀 Apply now!
apply.interfolio.com/165833
May 1, 2025 at 10:19 PM
Join us as a research engineer @ CSMAP.
1. Collaborate on deploying and fine-tuning LLMs/LMs - build your AI chops
2. Big compute resources and data infra already in place
3. Access to largest social data collections on earth
4. Smart & teched up co-workers who know their isht
1. Collaborate on deploying and fine-tuning LLMs/LMs - build your AI chops
2. Big compute resources and data infra already in place
3. Access to largest social data collections on earth
4. Smart & teched up co-workers who know their isht
Reposted by Sol Messing
💡 Ever wondered how social media and digital technology shapes our democracy?
Join our team @CSMaP_NYU as a Research Engingeer and help us build the tools that power cutting-edge research on the digital public sphere.
🚀 Apply now!
apply.interfolio.com/165833
Join our team @CSMaP_NYU as a Research Engingeer and help us build the tools that power cutting-edge research on the digital public sphere.
🚀 Apply now!
apply.interfolio.com/165833
May 1, 2025 at 3:32 PM
💡 Ever wondered how social media and digital technology shapes our democracy?
Join our team @CSMaP_NYU as a Research Engingeer and help us build the tools that power cutting-edge research on the digital public sphere.
🚀 Apply now!
apply.interfolio.com/165833
Join our team @CSMaP_NYU as a Research Engingeer and help us build the tools that power cutting-edge research on the digital public sphere.
🚀 Apply now!
apply.interfolio.com/165833
🚨 NEW job posting for research engineer/TL @ CSMAP.
1. Collaborate on deploying and fine-tuning LLMs/LMs - build your AI chops
2. Big compute resources and data infra already in place
3. Access to largest social data collections on earth
4. Smart & teched up co-workers who know their isht
1. Collaborate on deploying and fine-tuning LLMs/LMs - build your AI chops
2. Big compute resources and data infra already in place
3. Access to largest social data collections on earth
4. Smart & teched up co-workers who know their isht
🚨 Job Alert! 🚨
Come join our team studying the impact of digital media on democracy!
We're hiring a Technical Lead - Research Engineering to help us build and maintain the robust data infrastructure and custom tools that power our research.
More info + apply:
apply.interfolio.com/165833
Come join our team studying the impact of digital media on democracy!
We're hiring a Technical Lead - Research Engineering to help us build and maintain the robust data infrastructure and custom tools that power our research.
More info + apply:
apply.interfolio.com/165833
April 9, 2025 at 2:50 PM
🚨 NEW job posting for research engineer/TL @ CSMAP.
1. Collaborate on deploying and fine-tuning LLMs/LMs - build your AI chops
2. Big compute resources and data infra already in place
3. Access to largest social data collections on earth
4. Smart & teched up co-workers who know their isht
1. Collaborate on deploying and fine-tuning LLMs/LMs - build your AI chops
2. Big compute resources and data infra already in place
3. Access to largest social data collections on earth
4. Smart & teched up co-workers who know their isht
🚨 Fantastic data + methods work in PNAS on “scripted propaganda,” government-authored phrases/talking points that appear in commercial newspapers. They show it’s been on the rise in recent decades & particularly during COVID — huge congrats on this incredibly heavy lift
How can researchers identify covert state propaganda campaigns in China? My co-authors Yin Yuan, Molly Roberts, Brandon Stewart @bstewart.bsky.social and myself are excited to share our new article in PNAS (@PNAS): doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
Thread below.
Thread below.
The decade-long growth of government-authored news media in China under Xi Jinping | PNAS
Autocratic governments around the world use clandestine propaganda campaigns to influence
the media. We document a decade-long trend in China towar...
doi.org
March 12, 2025 at 1:07 PM
🚨 Fantastic data + methods work in PNAS on “scripted propaganda,” government-authored phrases/talking points that appear in commercial newspapers. They show it’s been on the rise in recent decades & particularly during COVID — huge congrats on this incredibly heavy lift
Dodge-targeted agencies are the ones that create knowledge, suggesting this is about more than just political retribution
@adambonica.bsky.social showed ideology predicts which agencies experience DOGE layoffs. But what other factors could be driving this?
Using a generative LLM-derived measure, I find agencies perceived as knowledge institutions are more likely to experience layoffs, even controlling for ideology. 🧵
Using a generative LLM-derived measure, I find agencies perceived as knowledge institutions are more likely to experience layoffs, even controlling for ideology. 🧵
March 6, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Dodge-targeted agencies are the ones that create knowledge, suggesting this is about more than just political retribution
Reposted by Sol Messing
Regardless of whether TikTok will be sold to a non-Chinese owner, @zevesanderson.com, @solmg.bsky.social, and Scott Babwah Brennen argue that researchers need access to independent data to understand the platform’s democratic effects in the U.S. and abroad.
Mosaics of Insight: Auditing TikTok Through Independent Data Access
Even if TikTok is sold to a non-Chinese buyer, the threat of foreign influence will remain. That’s why researchers need independent data access.
www.lawfaremedia.org
February 21, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Regardless of whether TikTok will be sold to a non-Chinese owner, @zevesanderson.com, @solmg.bsky.social, and Scott Babwah Brennen argue that researchers need access to independent data to understand the platform’s democratic effects in the U.S. and abroad.
Reposted by Sol Messing
In the absence of federal regulation, states continue to lead the development of technology policy in the US, passing 238 bills in 46 states in 2024, a 163 percent increase from last year.
New report published today by us & NYU's Center on Tech Policy.
🧵 1/
New report published today by us & NYU's Center on Tech Policy.
🧵 1/
The State of State Technology Policy: 2024 Report
In the absence of federal regulation, state’s continue to lead the development of technology policy in the United States, passing 238 bills in 46 states in 2024, a 163 percent increase from last year.
csmapnyu.org
December 12, 2024 at 2:58 PM
In the absence of federal regulation, states continue to lead the development of technology policy in the US, passing 238 bills in 46 states in 2024, a 163 percent increase from last year.
New report published today by us & NYU's Center on Tech Policy.
🧵 1/
New report published today by us & NYU's Center on Tech Policy.
🧵 1/
Optimist: The cup is half full
Pessimist: The cup is half empty
Political scientist: The cup is in a 2-party equilibrium. No major 3rd party will emerge due to its first-past-the-post voting system.
Pessimist: The cup is half empty
Political scientist: The cup is in a 2-party equilibrium. No major 3rd party will emerge due to its first-past-the-post voting system.
Optimist: The cup is half full
Pessimist: The cup is half empty
STS researcher: The cup is an affordance
Pessimist: The cup is half empty
STS researcher: The cup is an affordance
Optimist: The cup is half full
Pessimist: The cup is half empty
Cosmologist: The cup is dusty or full of gravitational waves
Pessimist: The cup is half empty
Cosmologist: The cup is dusty or full of gravitational waves
November 24, 2024 at 2:06 PM
Optimist: The cup is half full
Pessimist: The cup is half empty
Political scientist: The cup is in a 2-party equilibrium. No major 3rd party will emerge due to its first-past-the-post voting system.
Pessimist: The cup is half empty
Political scientist: The cup is in a 2-party equilibrium. No major 3rd party will emerge due to its first-past-the-post voting system.
Reposted by Sol Messing
📢 New CSMaP & @ucsandiego.bsky.social paper published in PNAS Nexus!
Main finding: Latinos who rely on Spanish-language social media for news were significantly more likely to believe false political narratives than those who consume English-language content
🧵 1/
academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...
Main finding: Latinos who rely on Spanish-language social media for news were significantly more likely to believe false political narratives than those who consume English-language content
🧵 1/
academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...
November 19, 2024 at 4:00 PM
📢 New CSMaP & @ucsandiego.bsky.social paper published in PNAS Nexus!
Main finding: Latinos who rely on Spanish-language social media for news were significantly more likely to believe false political narratives than those who consume English-language content
🧵 1/
academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...
Main finding: Latinos who rely on Spanish-language social media for news were significantly more likely to believe false political narratives than those who consume English-language content
🧵 1/
academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...
Reposted by Sol Messing
It's not fair u come armed with stupendous math coupled with actual experience as former Twitter employee. It's said much of Musk's followers are bots. But millions of his real followers will still do the job of multiplying effect.
🧵The study everyone here is talking about does NOT provide evidence that Twitter/X pushed a pro-Republican home timeline ranking change in July 2023.
The cascading, multiplicative effects of ranking changes likely explain the effect--details below
The cascading, multiplicative effects of ranking changes likely explain the effect--details below
November 17, 2024 at 5:16 PM
It's not fair u come armed with stupendous math coupled with actual experience as former Twitter employee. It's said much of Musk's followers are bots. But millions of his real followers will still do the job of multiplying effect.
🧵The study everyone here is talking about does NOT provide evidence that Twitter/X pushed a pro-Republican home timeline ranking change in July 2023.
The cascading, multiplicative effects of ranking changes likely explain the effect--details below
The cascading, multiplicative effects of ranking changes likely explain the effect--details below
November 17, 2024 at 3:15 PM
🧵The study everyone here is talking about does NOT provide evidence that Twitter/X pushed a pro-Republican home timeline ranking change in July 2023.
The cascading, multiplicative effects of ranking changes likely explain the effect--details below
The cascading, multiplicative effects of ranking changes likely explain the effect--details below
🧵Do not accept the narrative that Trump won b/c racism & sexism:
1. Doesn’t line up with the evidence
2. Assumes the worst about Trump voters & will further alienate them
3. Plays into "the left is too woke" meme
4. May embolden white supremacy
1. Doesn’t line up with the evidence
2. Assumes the worst about Trump voters & will further alienate them
3. Plays into "the left is too woke" meme
4. May embolden white supremacy
November 15, 2024 at 2:52 PM
🧵Do not accept the narrative that Trump won b/c racism & sexism:
1. Doesn’t line up with the evidence
2. Assumes the worst about Trump voters & will further alienate them
3. Plays into "the left is too woke" meme
4. May embolden white supremacy
1. Doesn’t line up with the evidence
2. Assumes the worst about Trump voters & will further alienate them
3. Plays into "the left is too woke" meme
4. May embolden white supremacy
Reposted by Sol Messing
Excited to share a pre-print about web scraping for research! We're happy to receive feedback on how we frame this issue and try to build some paths forward for researchers. w/ @orangechair.org, Gabe Maldoff, @solmg.bsky.social, Zeve Sanderson, & @michaelzimmer.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2410.23432
Web Scraping for Research: Legal, Ethical, Institutional, and Scientific Considerations
Scientists across disciplines often use data from the internet to conduct research, generating valuable insights about human behavior. However, as generative AI relying on massive text corpora becomes...
arxiv.org
November 1, 2024 at 3:52 PM
Excited to share a pre-print about web scraping for research! We're happy to receive feedback on how we frame this issue and try to build some paths forward for researchers. w/ @orangechair.org, Gabe Maldoff, @solmg.bsky.social, Zeve Sanderson, & @michaelzimmer.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2410.23432