Matt Hindman
@matthindman.bsky.social
Professor at SMPA GWU
Author of *The Internet Trap* and *The Myth of Digital Democracy*
political communication | digital platforms | politics of AI
Washington, DC
Author of *The Internet Trap* and *The Myth of Digital Democracy*
political communication | digital platforms | politics of AI
Washington, DC
Pinned
Matt Hindman
@matthindman.bsky.social
· Dec 13
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
doi.org
Where does extreme right-wing rhetoric come from?
In a new article in Communication Research, Yuan Hsiao and I analyze 19K videos & 661M comments on conservative YouTube channels to trace how extreme rhetoric forms.
BLUF: it comes mostly from users themselves.
doi.org/10.1177/0093...
In a new article in Communication Research, Yuan Hsiao and I analyze 19K videos & 661M comments on conservative YouTube channels to trace how extreme rhetoric forms.
BLUF: it comes mostly from users themselves.
doi.org/10.1177/0093...
Reposted by Matt Hindman
There's a colorable argument that a substantial part of the effectiveness of most of the major innovations in campaign communication in the last 15 years have been as a result of novel strategies to gain attention, including but not limited to social pressure GOTV mail, relational organizing, etc
Attention needs to be the DV in these models. NOT attitude change. Attention.
I agree with Brendans point, which is why I'm increasingly concerned that the dominant paradigm for message testing -- forced view survey-based ad testing -- is one that treats attention as a constant by design rather than one that treats it as a variable or, better yet, an outcome
July 10, 2025 at 2:22 PM
There's a colorable argument that a substantial part of the effectiveness of most of the major innovations in campaign communication in the last 15 years have been as a result of novel strategies to gain attention, including but not limited to social pressure GOTV mail, relational organizing, etc
Reposted by Matt Hindman
🇺🇸 #July4 project 🇺🇸
How does ChatGPT map the Declaration’s 27 #grievances to 2025 executive actions?
Scale 0-1 minor · 2 noticeable · 3 substantial · 4 ≈ average 1776 abuse · 5 worse.
AI coded (o3). Thread follows ⤵︎
[1/66]
How does ChatGPT map the Declaration’s 27 #grievances to 2025 executive actions?
Scale 0-1 minor · 2 noticeable · 3 substantial · 4 ≈ average 1776 abuse · 5 worse.
AI coded (o3). Thread follows ⤵︎
[1/66]
July 4, 2025 at 2:07 PM
🇺🇸 #July4 project 🇺🇸
How does ChatGPT map the Declaration’s 27 #grievances to 2025 executive actions?
Scale 0-1 minor · 2 noticeable · 3 substantial · 4 ≈ average 1776 abuse · 5 worse.
AI coded (o3). Thread follows ⤵︎
[1/66]
How does ChatGPT map the Declaration’s 27 #grievances to 2025 executive actions?
Scale 0-1 minor · 2 noticeable · 3 substantial · 4 ≈ average 1776 abuse · 5 worse.
AI coded (o3). Thread follows ⤵︎
[1/66]
Reposted by Matt Hindman
Academia in 2025: For weeks I’ve been working through botched copy-edits of my monograph, outsourced by the publisher to a company I’d never heard of, until it finally dawned on me the terrible job might be AI. A quick search confirmed the company recently launched new AI software, which now means..
May 27, 2025 at 10:23 AM
Academia in 2025: For weeks I’ve been working through botched copy-edits of my monograph, outsourced by the publisher to a company I’d never heard of, until it finally dawned on me the terrible job might be AI. A quick search confirmed the company recently launched new AI software, which now means..
Reposted by Matt Hindman
Just published: our new paper in Scientific Reports
📄 “Coordinated Link Sharing on Facebook”
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
We introduce a statistically grounded, human-interpretable method to detect coordination on social media.
📄 “Coordinated Link Sharing on Facebook”
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
We introduce a statistically grounded, human-interpretable method to detect coordination on social media.
Coordinated link sharing on Facebook - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Coordinated link sharing on Facebook
doi.org
May 8, 2025 at 1:16 AM
Just published: our new paper in Scientific Reports
📄 “Coordinated Link Sharing on Facebook”
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
We introduce a statistically grounded, human-interpretable method to detect coordination on social media.
📄 “Coordinated Link Sharing on Facebook”
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
We introduce a statistically grounded, human-interpretable method to detect coordination on social media.
Reposted by Matt Hindman
ATTENTION: NSF GRANT RECIPIENTS
We received a heads up from a trusted source that you should proactively download/print/screen shot any documentation on research.gov pertaining to your NSF awards, both those that are current and any that have closed in the last 5-6 years.
1/n
We received a heads up from a trusted source that you should proactively download/print/screen shot any documentation on research.gov pertaining to your NSF awards, both those that are current and any that have closed in the last 5-6 years.
1/n
a cartoon of a man holding a frying pan and a spoon with red alert written above him
ALT: a cartoon of a man holding a frying pan and a spoon with red alert written above him
media.tenor.com
April 24, 2025 at 9:09 PM
ATTENTION: NSF GRANT RECIPIENTS
We received a heads up from a trusted source that you should proactively download/print/screen shot any documentation on research.gov pertaining to your NSF awards, both those that are current and any that have closed in the last 5-6 years.
1/n
We received a heads up from a trusted source that you should proactively download/print/screen shot any documentation on research.gov pertaining to your NSF awards, both those that are current and any that have closed in the last 5-6 years.
1/n
Thrilled to have this published.
Everything you've wanted to know about political Youtube -- from Kevin Munger, Jim Bisbee (@jamesbisbee.bsky.social), Omer Yalcin (@ofyalcin.bsky.social), Joe Phillips (@polpsychjoe.bsky.social), and myself.
Out now in the Journal of Quantitative Description.
Everything you've wanted to know about political Youtube -- from Kevin Munger, Jim Bisbee (@jamesbisbee.bsky.social), Omer Yalcin (@ofyalcin.bsky.social), Joe Phillips (@polpsychjoe.bsky.social), and myself.
Out now in the Journal of Quantitative Description.
Out now and open access! A quantitative description of political YouTube channels, from YouTube's inception (with Kevin Munger, @jamesbisbee.bsky.social, @ofyalcin.bsky.social, and @matthindman.bsky.social). A 🧵
journalqd.org/article/view...
journalqd.org/article/view...
Pressing Play on Politics: Quantitative Description of YouTube
| Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media
journalqd.org
March 5, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Thrilled to have this published.
Everything you've wanted to know about political Youtube -- from Kevin Munger, Jim Bisbee (@jamesbisbee.bsky.social), Omer Yalcin (@ofyalcin.bsky.social), Joe Phillips (@polpsychjoe.bsky.social), and myself.
Out now in the Journal of Quantitative Description.
Everything you've wanted to know about political Youtube -- from Kevin Munger, Jim Bisbee (@jamesbisbee.bsky.social), Omer Yalcin (@ofyalcin.bsky.social), Joe Phillips (@polpsychjoe.bsky.social), and myself.
Out now in the Journal of Quantitative Description.
Reposted by Matt Hindman
🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.
February 4, 2025 at 1:26 AM
🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.
Reposted by Matt Hindman
New and important: we built a federal expenditure tracker. All expenditure line items that are available on the Daily Treasury Statement.
USAID was zeroed out on 1/28 and has been at zero ever since.
www.hamiltonproject.org/data/trackin...
#EconSky
USAID was zeroed out on 1/28 and has been at zero ever since.
www.hamiltonproject.org/data/trackin...
#EconSky
February 3, 2025 at 9:41 PM
New and important: we built a federal expenditure tracker. All expenditure line items that are available on the Daily Treasury Statement.
USAID was zeroed out on 1/28 and has been at zero ever since.
www.hamiltonproject.org/data/trackin...
#EconSky
USAID was zeroed out on 1/28 and has been at zero ever since.
www.hamiltonproject.org/data/trackin...
#EconSky
Reposted by Matt Hindman
Arguably the biggest national security breach in U.S. history. Private employees downloading personnel data on every federal employee and tax and social security data on every American onto private unsecured servers. Needless to say, completely illegal and subject to major prison sentences.
3/ different pieces fit together. There also seems to be a significant amount of downloading government data onto private servers, etc, totally outside any cybersecurity regime. Additionally it’s unclear to the people inside whether the people doing these things actually work for the US govt…
February 2, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Arguably the biggest national security breach in U.S. history. Private employees downloading personnel data on every federal employee and tax and social security data on every American onto private unsecured servers. Needless to say, completely illegal and subject to major prison sentences.
These are true “holy shit” results — a huge step change in AI capabilities on the very hardest current benchmarks.
For competitive coding, this is like Deep Blue beating Kasparov.
We all need to update our priors on how much knowledge work AI will displace — and how quickly.
For competitive coding, this is like Deep Blue beating Kasparov.
We all need to update our priors on how much knowledge work AI will displace — and how quickly.
Independent evaluations of OpenAI’s o3 suggest that it passed math & reasoning benchmarks that were previously considered far out of reach for AI including achieving a score on ARC-AGI that was associated with actually achieving AGI (though the creators of the benchmark don’t think it o3 is AGI)
December 20, 2024 at 7:36 PM
These are true “holy shit” results — a huge step change in AI capabilities on the very hardest current benchmarks.
For competitive coding, this is like Deep Blue beating Kasparov.
We all need to update our priors on how much knowledge work AI will displace — and how quickly.
For competitive coding, this is like Deep Blue beating Kasparov.
We all need to update our priors on how much knowledge work AI will displace — and how quickly.
Where does extreme right-wing rhetoric come from?
In a new article in Communication Research, Yuan Hsiao and I analyze 19K videos & 661M comments on conservative YouTube channels to trace how extreme rhetoric forms.
BLUF: it comes mostly from users themselves.
doi.org/10.1177/0093...
In a new article in Communication Research, Yuan Hsiao and I analyze 19K videos & 661M comments on conservative YouTube channels to trace how extreme rhetoric forms.
BLUF: it comes mostly from users themselves.
doi.org/10.1177/0093...
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
doi.org
December 13, 2024 at 5:58 PM
Where does extreme right-wing rhetoric come from?
In a new article in Communication Research, Yuan Hsiao and I analyze 19K videos & 661M comments on conservative YouTube channels to trace how extreme rhetoric forms.
BLUF: it comes mostly from users themselves.
doi.org/10.1177/0093...
In a new article in Communication Research, Yuan Hsiao and I analyze 19K videos & 661M comments on conservative YouTube channels to trace how extreme rhetoric forms.
BLUF: it comes mostly from users themselves.
doi.org/10.1177/0093...
Reposted by Matt Hindman
Awesome job alert: Analyst Institute is hiring a research manager. Great job for Social Science PhD who wants to change the world for the better through experiments.
analystinstitute.pinpointhq.com/en/postings/...
analystinstitute.pinpointhq.com/en/postings/...
Research Manager
Job Opening: Research Manager at Analyst Institute in Remote.
analystinstitute.pinpointhq.com
December 13, 2024 at 2:48 PM
Awesome job alert: Analyst Institute is hiring a research manager. Great job for Social Science PhD who wants to change the world for the better through experiments.
analystinstitute.pinpointhq.com/en/postings/...
analystinstitute.pinpointhq.com/en/postings/...
Reposted by Matt Hindman
This is a really great piece, as Ganz's work always is. I think the inconvenient thing is the civic associationism of American history was heavily driven by local religious congregations, supplemented in the 20th century by veterans groups like the VFW. It was these groups that included "normies."
There's been a lot of talk about reinvigorating a thick civic life in the wake of the election. Back in 2017, I had the same idea and I found that while associationism might be what our democracy is missing, it was not for me.
www.unpopularfront.news/p/civic-life...
www.unpopularfront.news/p/civic-life...
Civic Life Kinda Sucks
A Memoir of Trying to Get Involved
www.unpopularfront.news
December 12, 2024 at 4:15 PM
This is a really great piece, as Ganz's work always is. I think the inconvenient thing is the civic associationism of American history was heavily driven by local religious congregations, supplemented in the 20th century by veterans groups like the VFW. It was these groups that included "normies."
Yes—but the most important shift needed here is simpler.
We need less bullshit about “listening,” and more of the hard work of audience building.
We need less bullshit about “listening,” and more of the hard work of audience building.
In agreement for the most part with @jonfavs.bsky.social, but with caveats. Democrats need to get into the persuasion business, but it’s a different business than most of them remember. And as we’re seeing with their obeisant response to the election, the leaders don’t seem aware.
Democrats Need To Understand That Persuasion Is A Business—A Big One
Plus 16 thoughts on what a broader conception of persuasion would look like.
www.offmessage.net
December 12, 2024 at 1:10 PM
Yes—but the most important shift needed here is simpler.
We need less bullshit about “listening,” and more of the hard work of audience building.
We need less bullshit about “listening,” and more of the hard work of audience building.
Reposted by Matt Hindman
A good time to (re)read @newsprof1.bsky.social @melbunce.bsky.social @martinscott2010.bsky.social on government capture of public media and its relationship to democratic backsliding global.oup.com/academic/pro...
December 12, 2024 at 12:44 PM
A good time to (re)read @newsprof1.bsky.social @melbunce.bsky.social @martinscott2010.bsky.social on government capture of public media and its relationship to democratic backsliding global.oup.com/academic/pro...
Reposted by Matt Hindman
The AI military-industrial complex is forming quickly—legacy contractors, big tech firms, and generative AI startups. I wrote about what the military and the AI industry want for @gzeromedia.bsky.social:
The AI military-industrial complex is here
The Pentagon desperately wants technological superiority over its military rivals. And in 2024, that means it’s in hot pursuit of artificial intelligence.
www.gzeromedia.com
December 10, 2024 at 11:42 PM
The AI military-industrial complex is forming quickly—legacy contractors, big tech firms, and generative AI startups. I wrote about what the military and the AI industry want for @gzeromedia.bsky.social:
Reposted by Matt Hindman
This looks to be the story Penny's team referenced. It's an AI-written article by "The Pinnacle Gazette," a site run by a popular Turkish science company.
The jury is anonymous, but "Martin Beck" is not one of their names, according to Penny's lawyers.
AI in journalism, folks.
The jury is anonymous, but "Martin Beck" is not one of their names, according to Penny's lawyers.
AI in journalism, folks.
December 6, 2024 at 9:41 PM
This looks to be the story Penny's team referenced. It's an AI-written article by "The Pinnacle Gazette," a site run by a popular Turkish science company.
The jury is anonymous, but "Martin Beck" is not one of their names, according to Penny's lawyers.
AI in journalism, folks.
The jury is anonymous, but "Martin Beck" is not one of their names, according to Penny's lawyers.
AI in journalism, folks.
Reposted by Matt Hindman
The convergence of Trump and Musk’s political power with ownership of social media platforms raises urgent questions about democratic accountability and unprecedented authority over communication platforms, writes Philip M. Napoli. www.techpolicy.press/platforms-an...
Platforms and the Presidency: An Unprecedented Situation | TechPolicy.Press
The convergence of Trump and Musk’s political power with ownership of social media platforms raises urgent questions, writes Philip M. Napoli.
www.techpolicy.press
December 3, 2024 at 2:40 PM
The convergence of Trump and Musk’s political power with ownership of social media platforms raises urgent questions about democratic accountability and unprecedented authority over communication platforms, writes Philip M. Napoli. www.techpolicy.press/platforms-an...
Reposted by Matt Hindman
🚨 NEW PAPER: When low-income Americans get $1,000/month for 3 years, what happens to their political views & behavior?
The OpenResearch Unconditional income Study reveals surprising findings about the effects of income on politics... 🧵
The OpenResearch Unconditional income Study reveals surprising findings about the effects of income on politics... 🧵
December 2, 2024 at 7:00 PM
🚨 NEW PAPER: When low-income Americans get $1,000/month for 3 years, what happens to their political views & behavior?
The OpenResearch Unconditional income Study reveals surprising findings about the effects of income on politics... 🧵
The OpenResearch Unconditional income Study reveals surprising findings about the effects of income on politics... 🧵
Reposted by Matt Hindman
We asked journalists around the world who have endured attacks on press freedom what advice they would give their American colleagues. We have collected their wise and remarkable responses in a special issue of @niemanreports.org. “Dear America,” they wrote.
November 27, 2024 at 8:31 PM
We asked journalists around the world who have endured attacks on press freedom what advice they would give their American colleagues. We have collected their wise and remarkable responses in a special issue of @niemanreports.org. “Dear America,” they wrote.
Reposted by Matt Hindman
Meet OLMo 2, the best fully open language model to date, including a family of 7B and 13B models trained up to 5T tokens. OLMo 2 outperforms other fully open models and competes with open-weight models like Llama 3.1 8B — As always, we released our data, code, recipes and more 🎁
November 26, 2024 at 8:51 PM
Meet OLMo 2, the best fully open language model to date, including a family of 7B and 13B models trained up to 5T tokens. OLMo 2 outperforms other fully open models and competes with open-weight models like Llama 3.1 8B — As always, we released our data, code, recipes and more 🎁
Reposted by Matt Hindman
Pollsters weighted more in 2024 – and it helped.
Adjustments for education and past vote made national and state polls more accurate.
Read the story: goodauthority.org/news/pollste...
Adjustments for education and past vote made national and state polls more accurate.
Read the story: goodauthority.org/news/pollste...
Pollsters in the 2024 U.S. election came close.
Pollsters weighted their survey samples more aggressively than ever before, and polls were more accurate in 2024.
goodauthority.org
November 26, 2024 at 2:36 PM
Pollsters weighted more in 2024 – and it helped.
Adjustments for education and past vote made national and state polls more accurate.
Read the story: goodauthority.org/news/pollste...
Adjustments for education and past vote made national and state polls more accurate.
Read the story: goodauthority.org/news/pollste...
Reposted by Matt Hindman
A new report on how Chinese pro-PRC disinformation continues to spread on supposedly independent news websites around the globe, from Google's Threat Analysis Group.
cloud.google.com/blog/topics/...
cloud.google.com/blog/topics/...
Seeing Through a GLASSBRIDGE: Understanding the Digital Marketing Ecosystem Spreading Pro-PRC Influence Operations | Google Cloud Blog
GLASSBRIDGE is an umbrella group of four different companies that operate networks of inauthentic news sites and newswire services.
cloud.google.com
November 25, 2024 at 12:39 PM
A new report on how Chinese pro-PRC disinformation continues to spread on supposedly independent news websites around the globe, from Google's Threat Analysis Group.
cloud.google.com/blog/topics/...
cloud.google.com/blog/topics/...
Reposted by Matt Hindman
New article in Journal of Communication looking at changes to trust in news across 46 countries in the last 10 years.
Trust in news declined in just over half of countries.
It decreased more in countries where TV news use has declined, and/or where social media news use has grown.
A thread:
Trust in news declined in just over half of countries.
It decreased more in countries where TV news use has declined, and/or where social media news use has grown.
A thread:
The link between changing news use and trust: longitudinal analysis of 46 countries
Abstract . Changing levels of public trust in the news are of deep concern to both researchers and practitioners. We use data from 2015 to 2023 in 46 count
academic.oup.com
November 23, 2024 at 7:50 AM
New article in Journal of Communication looking at changes to trust in news across 46 countries in the last 10 years.
Trust in news declined in just over half of countries.
It decreased more in countries where TV news use has declined, and/or where social media news use has grown.
A thread:
Trust in news declined in just over half of countries.
It decreased more in countries where TV news use has declined, and/or where social media news use has grown.
A thread: