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Philipp Lorenz-Spreen

@lorenzspreen.bsky.social

10K followers 610 following 260 posts

Heading the Computational Social Science group within SynoSys & ScaDS.AI at TU Dresden, where we study how online information environments impact public discourse and develop alternatives that benefit democracy. CSS-Group: https://css-synosys.github.io/

css-synosys.github.io

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Philipp Lorenz-Spreen @lorenzspreen.bsky.social · Mar 8

I wanted to highlight key findings from our study and the replication, and how they extend to 2024.

Now it provides a systematic review of more than 600 scientific studies on the relationship between digitalization and democracy.

So what does science have to say? We actually know quite a bit: 1/5

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Wiebke Drews @wiebkedrews.bsky.social · 2d

📢 New Publication Alert!

Thrilled to share our latest article with @jasminriedl.bsky.social & Johannes Steup
👉 Topical Negative Campaigning Under Spatial Pressure: Party-Level Strategies for Attacks Across Multiple Issues
🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0964...

Topical Negative Campaigning Under Spatial Pressure: Party-Level Strategies for Attacks Across Multiple Issues

This paper investigates how spatial party competition shapes topical negative campaigning during Germany's 2021 federal election. We define topical negative campaigning as attacks on opponents that...

doi.org

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Reposted by Philipp Lorenz-Spreen

Manoel Horta Ribeiro @manoelhortaribeiro.bsky.social · 22d

Social media feeds today are optimized for engagement, often leading to misalignment between users' intentions and technology use.

In a new paper, we introduce Bonsai, a tool to create feeds based on stated preferences, rather than predicted engagement.

arxiv.org/abs/2509.10776

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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.bsky.social · 4d

President Macron:
“We were very naive to leave our public space to social media networks controlled by US or Chinese companies that don’t share our interests and not interested in survival of our democracies.”
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MggN...

French President Macron Speaks at German Unity Day Ceremony | WION LIVE

YouTube video by WION

www.youtube.com

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Social Media Lab @socialmedialab.ca · 4d

"We've been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks that are controlled either by large American entrepreneurs or large Chinese companies, whose interests are not at all the survival or proper functioning of our democracies." - Macron defenddemocracy.eu/macron-democ...

"Europeans, let's wake up!" — Defend Democracy

“We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks.” President Macron on the occasion of German Unity Day, 3 October 2025.

defenddemocracy.eu

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Paul Hünermund @p-hunermund.com · 4d

All the arguments about fair labor and intellectual property seem to distract from the core message, which is in the last sentence:

"Psychology is meant to study humans, not statistical models."

Richard D. Morey @richarddmorey.bsky.social · 4d

For me this is a hard red line in psychological science. If you advocate the use of "silicon samples" you do not understand what it is we're supposed to be doing (and likely don't understand LLMs, or are a grifter). Luckily I haven't seen much of this among people I'd consider my peer group.

Except from Table 1 of Guest & van Rooij, 2025:

3) Displacement of Participants

“I can use AI instead of participants to perform tasks and generate data.”

The providence of the data used in these models indicates it is not ethically sourced, falling below standards for our discipline, involving sweatshop labour and no consent for private data used in experiments. The output can contain direct original input data (i.e. double dipping), but smoothed to remove outliers, conform to our pre-existing ideas of what it should look like (data fabrication), and all-round irreplicable. Psychology is meant to study humans, not patterns at the output of biased statistical models.

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Philipp Lorenz-Spreen @lorenzspreen.bsky.social · 4d

Indeed, especially in complex systems with feedback loops and spill over this is particularly challenging and trade offs have to be made, we wrote about this in the context of Social Media Research recently: arxiv.org/abs/2505.09254

Moving towards informative and actionable social media research

Social media is nearly ubiquitous in modern life, and concerns have been raised about its putative societal impacts, ranging from undermining mental health and exacerbating polarization to fomenting v...

arxiv.org

Reposted by Philipp Lorenz-Spreen

Paul Hünermund @p-hunermund.com · 4d

Mini thread trying to debunk the "RCT or bust" propaganda. Looking forward to a chilled Saturday morning on Bluesky. 😉

Paul Hünermund @p-hunermund.com · 4d

I disagree. That's exactly where the "RCT is the gold standard" metaphor goes wrong, in my view. RCTs are a powerful tool, but they don't exist in their Platonic ideal. In reality, you'll need to make trade-offs, e.g., with respect to the population you can expose to randomization.

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Sebastian Stier @sebstier.bsky.social · 6d

📢 We're hiring a Doctoral Student in Research Software Engineering for Digital Behavioral Data!
Work at the intersection of computer science and social science, develop innovative tools, and pursue your doctoral degree with us.

👉 Apply here: www.gesis.org/en/institute...

Details

GESIS Leibniz Institut für Sozialwissenschaften

www.gesis.org

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Reposted by Philipp Lorenz-Spreen

Lena Frischlich @lenafrescamente.bsky.social · 7d

#PublicationAlert 🥰. This one has been long in the making: It started with a @sfiscience.bsky.social workshop in 2023, lead to a working group at the SFI in 2024, multiple online-meetings (one from Costa Rica, Munich, Denmark, Mumbai, and the US), thought-provoking and truly interdisciplinary work.

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Steffen Mau @steffenmau.bsky.social · 7d

Some personal news to share www.mpg.de/25487784/aus...

Ausbau der Forschung zu Ungleichheit und Konflikten

Soziologe Steffen Mau an das Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung multireligiöser und multiethnischer Gesellschaften in Göttingen berufen. Neuausrichtung des Instituts startet

www.mpg.de

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Philipp Lorenz-Spreen @lorenzspreen.bsky.social · 8d

Now the official version (in German): www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtEQ...

Reposted by Philipp Lorenz-Spreen

Johannes B. Gruber @jbgruber.bsky.social · 8d

@sebstier.bsky.social at #MEDem Conf: computational research of democracy stands in the shoulders of the few enthusiasts who create datasets, software and infrastructure for it. How can we move forward? Short answer: more collaboration & sharing!

How to move forward

Collaborate on improving data coverage
Filling gaps in poliitical text orpora
Collecting online platform data via APls, webscraping and the Digital Services Act
Share open-source software, R packages and infrastructure components
Improve conditions for data sharing
Critically evaluate and improve the application of Al
Requires collaboration and funding at the European level

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Simon Ciranka @simyciri.bsky.social · 9d

😍 Our latest is out now in @commspsychol.nature.com. 🤩 We show with Bayesian modelling and experimental manipulation of uncertainty that developmental differences in social influence depend on differences in the internal uncertainty people have about their choice
doi.org/10.1038/s442...

Internal uncertainty impacts social information use in risky choice across adolescence - Communications Psychology

Adolescents’ choices are influenced by others. A social risky choice experiment and Bayesian modelling reveal that age differences in internal uncertainty, being unsure how to choose, relate to differences in susceptibility to social influence.

doi.org

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Philipp Lorenz-Spreen @lorenzspreen.bsky.social · 9d

My talk (among many other great presentations) from last week's annual conference of the @leopoldina.org is online:

In German (original): www.youtube.com/live/P8LMkq8...

In English (translated): www.youtube.com/live/XFZvksL...

Jahresversammlung 2025 der Leopoldina: Künstliche Intelligenz – 26. September 2025

YouTube video by Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften Leopoldina

www.youtube.com

Philipp Lorenz-Spreen @lorenzspreen.bsky.social · 9d

"Notably, patterns of social media use—particularly greater Facebook use—were the strongest behavioral predictors of authoritarian tendencies."

osf.io/preprints/ps...

OSF

osf.io

Reposted by Philipp Lorenz-Spreen

Claes de Vreese @claesdevreese.bsky.social · 10d

All EU countries appear to be gone in the Google political ad library

By @lizcarolan.com

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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 10d

The President of the United States has posted a fake AI video of himself announcing a non-existent policy to give people access to a fake miracle cure that also doesn't exist truthsocial.com/@realDonaldT... We are fully through the looking glass, folks.

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Social Media Lab @socialmedialab.ca · 10d

Inside the everyday Facebook networks where far-right ideas grow: "The Guardian spent a year studying an online community trading in anti-immigration sentiment and misinformation. Experts say such spaces can play a role in radicalisation" www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...

Inside the everyday Facebook networks where far-right ideas grow

The Guardian spent a year studying an online community trading in anti-immigration sentiment and misinformation. Experts say such spaces can play a role in radicalisation

www.theguardian.com

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Stefanie Walter @stefwalter.bsky.social · 11d

"In Europe, the technocrats who govern [...] share the same incomprehension at the offensive they are facing. They [fail to] acknowledge that Trump and the tech bros’ goal is to impose regime change on this side of the Atlantic as well."

How tech lords and populists changed the rules of power

Digital moguls and strongman leaders are more than disrupters of the old liberal order. Together they seek to sweep it away, writes Giuliano da Empoli

www.ft.com

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Philipp Lorenz-Spreen @lorenzspreen.bsky.social · 10d

Maybe a loss of trust can be traced back to growing discrepancies between public debate and one's own information environment. In an increasingly fragmented info- and social space and resulting majority illusion, this poses a fundamental problem as media and institutions can never cover all topics.

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Weizenbaum-Institut @weizenbauminstitut.bsky.social · 14d

Mit dem Digital Services Act versucht die EU ihre Bürger*innen vor den Risiken digitaler Plattformen zu schützen. Wir sprachen mit LK Seiling, Co-Autor unseres neusten Policy Papers, wie das inmitten geopolitischer Spannungen mit den USA funktionieren kann. #DSA40
Zum Interview 👉 buff.ly/5zISV6z

Was, wenn die Plattformen einfach mit den Schultern zucken?

Mit dem Digital Services Act versucht die EU ihre Bürger*innen vor den Risiken digitaler Plattformen, großteils US-amerikanischer, zu schützen. Wir sprachen mit LK Seiling, Co-Autor eines neuen…

www.weizenbaum-institut.de

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Petter Törnberg @pettertornberg.com · 22d

How much did Elon's takeover reshape Twitter/X? How did the partisan tilt of social media use change from 2020 to 2024?

The ANES 2024 data is out — and this thread answers all your burning questions! 🔥

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Philipp Lorenz-Spreen @lorenzspreen.bsky.social · 14d

Here @saminenno.bsky.social ‘s post on our website: css-synosys.github.io/post/public_...

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Social Media Lab @socialmedialab.ca · 16d

According to the Whitehouse, TikTok's new U.S. entity would lease and "retrain" TikTok's fame algorithm from Chinese owner ByteDance under the terms of a yet-to-be-completed deal between the U.S. and China. www.axios.com/2025/09/22/t...

White House discloses more details of deal to save TikTok

TikTok's new U.S. entity would lease its algorithm from Chinese owner ByteDance.

www.axios.com

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Philipp Lorenz-Spreen @lorenzspreen.bsky.social · 15d

Feels like reposting this will stay timely for a bit…

Philipp Lorenz-Spreen @lorenzspreen.bsky.social · 25d

We must come to terms with the fact that it was a huge mistake to leave the online world largely unchecked, and that we urgently need to deal with a fragmented, radicalized and instrumentalized reality in many countries simultaneously and take action instead of remaining in shock or relativization.