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Reposted by Cameron Martel

Johan Ugander @jugander.bsky.social · 26d

📣 Yale workshop, Oct 16-17! 📣 How could/should content ranking work? What's new in content moderation? How can platforms promote civility? Hosted by Yale's Institute for Foundations of Data Science (FDS). Great speakers! Submit posters by 9/22! Spread the word! yalefds.swoogo.com/socialalgori...

New Directions in Social Algorithms Research on October 16-17, 2025 at Yale University

As social media algorithms increasingly mediate social experiences, there has been a rapid increase in research on the effects of how these algorithms are configured, alternatives to engagement-centri...

yalefds.swoogo.com

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Reposted by Cameron Martel

Jenny Allen @jennyallen.bsky.social · Aug 6

New in TiCS w @dgrand.bsky.social @gordpennycook.bsky.social

It’s been ~10yrs since misinfo research exploded but our paradigms are stuck in the post-2016 “fake news” model

Time for new approaches:
o True/False → Content that misleads
o Belief → Behavior
o Eval interventions in ambiguous settings

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Reposted by Cameron Martel

David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · Jun 17

🚨In PNAS🚨
The right often accuses fact-checkers of political bias
But we analyzed Community Notes on Musk's X and found posts flagged as "misleading" are 2.3x more likely to be written by Reps than Dems!
The issue is Reps sharing misinformation, not fact-checker bias...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

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Cameron Martel @cameronmartel.bsky.social · Apr 14

Huge thank you to collaborators @mmosleh.bsky.social @eckles.bsky.social @dgrand.bsky.social

Comments, feedback, & suggestions appreciated as always!

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Cameron Martel @cameronmartel.bsky.social · Apr 14

Caveats:
-Engagement ≠ belief updating (tho it’s an important first step)
-Social corrections can have other negative effects (eg downstream lower quality reposting)
dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1...
-Hard to measure (presumably positive) third-party effects of social corrections on observers in field

Perverse Downstream Consequences of Debunking: Being Corrected by Another User for Posting False Political News Increases Subsequent Sharing of Low Quality, Partisan, and Toxic Content in a Twitter Fi...

dl.acm.org

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Cameron Martel @cameronmartel.bsky.social · Apr 14

Our results demonstrate social media’s ability to foster engagement w corrections via minimal social relationships

Ppl are more likely to engage w those who have followed & engaged w them first

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Cameron Martel @cameronmartel.bsky.social · Apr 14

A second survey exp found that minimal social connections foster a general norm of responding, such that ppl feel more obligated to respond - and think others expect them to respond more - to ppl who follow them, even outside the context of misinfo correction

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Cameron Martel @cameronmartel.bsky.social · Apr 14

Exploratory analyses also show that in both survey & field exps, extreme partisanship moderates the effects of social connection on engagement - social connection increases engagement for co-partisans, but decreases engagement for politically extreme counter-partisans

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Cameron Martel @cameronmartel.bsky.social · Apr 14

We next conducted a follow-up survey on MTurk to replicate effects in a more controlled setting (eg eliminate blocking of counter-partisan bots) & obtained similar results

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Cameron Martel @cameronmartel.bsky.social · Apr 14

To account for this we (i) compare unaffected conditions (all but social counter-partisan) & (ii) perform principal stratification (weighting obs in unaffected conditions by p(success treat delivery) had they been in social counter-partisan condit)

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Cameron Martel @cameronmartel.bsky.social · Apr 14

Users were also more likely to block our bots in the social counter-partisan condition (consistent w our @pnasnexus.org paper on greater blocking of counter-partisans). But this resulted in differential treatment delivery- we could not send corrections to users who blocked our bots shorturl.at/eG5bs

Blocking of counter-partisan accounts drives political assortment on Twitter

Abstract. There is strong political assortment of Americans on social media networks. This is typically attributed to preferential tie formation (i.e. homo

academic.oup.com

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Cameron Martel @cameronmartel.bsky.social · Apr 14

Maybe users simply did not notice or believe the partisanship manip? Prob not: we looked at the follow-back rates in the social condition, & partisanship had a strong effect (consistent w our @pnas.org paper on greater follow-back of copartisans)
shorturl.at/B58Xh

PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

www.pnas.org

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Cameron Martel @cameronmartel.bsky.social · Apr 14

We sent corrections to 1,586 users & measured p(engage w correction):
(i) Among users in the co-partisan condition, social connection had a sig positive effect on engagement
(ii) Among users in the baseline (non-social) condition, no evidence of effect of shared partisanship on engagement

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Cameron Martel @cameronmartel.bsky.social · Apr 14

Each user was then socially corrected by their randomly assigned bot. Social corrections were done via public reply to the tweet containing the debunked URL and included a link to the fact-check on @snopes.com

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Cameron Martel @cameronmartel.bsky.social · Apr 14

We created human-looking bots & corrected users who shared debunked URLs

We randomized whether our bots
(i) were co-partisan or counter-partisan for the to-be-corrected user
(ii) followed the user & liked some of their tweets before correcting them (creating a minimal social connection)

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Cameron Martel @cameronmartel.bsky.social · Apr 14

Social corrections, where users correct one another on social media, have been found to be effective in survey settings shorturl.at/SYomc

But in the field, social corrections are often ignored shorturl.at/jcxPd

We ask what *causes* greater engagement on Twitter (X)

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Cameron Martel @cameronmartel.bsky.social · Apr 14

🚨New in @plosone.org🚨
Corrections of misinfo are often ignored. What can drive engagement?
Twitter field exp & survey followups find
-Social ties matter: users more likely to engage w corrections from accounts who followed user
-Shared partisanship had smaller effects on engagement
shorturl.at/0Ycdp

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Reposted by Cameron Martel

Oxford Internet Institute @oii.ox.ac.uk · Mar 13

In the latest episode of the OII podcast, we're tackling misinformation and polarization on social media. What's the real-world impact? How are governments responding? And what about AI and deepfakes?

Listen here: podcasts.ox.ac.uk/why-social-m...

Why social media is the new frontier for misinformation, and what we can do about it: Professor Mohsen Mosleh and Cameron Martel

In the sixth episode of the OII Podcast, our experts discuss topics such as: * The real world impacts that arise when people increasingly identify with their political tribes online * What role govern...

podcasts.ox.ac.uk

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Reposted by Cameron Martel

David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · Mar 6

Nice blog post by @cameronmartel.bsky.social on our NHB paper showing fact-checker warnings work even for people who distrust fact-checkers. Particularly relevant re Meta's rollback of fact checking based (among other things) on claim that fact-checkers lost publics trust spsp.org/news/charact...

Fact-checker Warnings Are Surprisingly Effective Even For Skeptics | SPSP

Even when people distrust fact-checkers, they’re still influenced by warning labels on false news.

spsp.org

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Reposted by Cameron Martel

Reed Orchinik @rorchinik.bsky.social · Feb 1

New WP!
The illusory truth effect (repetition -> belief) is core to psych of beliefs, & thought to be a deep bias impacting misinfo, persuasion & advertising

Why would cognition include such a flaw? We argue it is a rational adaptation to high-quality info environments 🧵1/

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Reposted by Cameron Martel

David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · Jan 31

🚨New WP🚨
Remember Musk+Zuck+Trump+Jordan etc crying fact-checker bias b/c Reps were flagged more than Dems? We analyzed Community Notes on Musk's X and guess what: posts flagged as "misleading" are 67% more likely to be written by Reps! The issue is Reps, not fact-checkers...
osf.io/preprints/ps...

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Reposted by Cameron Martel

Matt DeVerna @matthewdeverna.com · Jan 29

Three new articles discuss Meta’s decision to drop fact-checkers and shift to a "Community Notes" model, sparking concerns about misinformation.

What's at stake? Here are three smart takes from experts.

A short thread: 🧵

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Reposted by Cameron Martel

David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · Jan 28

🚨OpEd+data: Meta is out of step with public opinion🚨
Zuck cut moderation b/c he said people no longer want it. But he's wrong!
We polled 1k Americans and most people, including majority of Reps:
i) want content moderation
ii) don't want Community Notes w/o fact-checkers
thehill.com/opinion/tech...

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Reposted by Cameron Martel

David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · Dec 9

🚨New WP🚨
We examine news sharing on 7 platforms:
1)Right-leaning platforms=lower quality news
2)Echo-platforms: Right-leaning news gets more engagement on right-leaning platforms, vice-versa for left-leaning
3)But low-quality news gets more engagement EVERYWHERE, even BlueSky!
osf.io/preprints/ps...

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Cameron Martel @cameronmartel.bsky.social · Oct 16

HUGE thank yous to project co-lead @mmosleh.bsky.social (at @oiioxford.bsky.social) & @dgrand.bsky.social

Thoughts, comments, & feedback welcome and appreciated as always!!

Paper here: dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0...
Preprint here: osf.io/preprints/ps...

APA PsycNet

dx.doi.org