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Since taking over at Twitter, Elon Musk's personal beliefs have had an outsized influence on the platform. As its content and user base evolve, it's unclear whether a Musk owned Twitter can maintain the platform's central role in the American political media landscape.

In response to the European Commission's Digital Services Act, we submitted comments highlighting the importance of data access for independent research and suggested standards for data access mechanisms.

BlueSky is a half-decentralized social network designed to replace Twitter. Will it keep its luster as it scales up?

As a leader in applied data science with high-level experience across Twitter, Meta, and Pew, Messing will leverage his strong technical background and deep knowledge of the platforms to expand CSMaP’s research capacity.

A look at our top articles, events, and more from the past year.

That could affect their votes — and their safety from covid-19.

We find that YouTube’s recommendation algorithm does not lead the vast majority of users down extremist rabbit holes, although it does push users into increasingly narrow ideological ranges of content in what we might call evidence of a (very) mild ideological echo chamber.

New study shows how site’s algorithms perpetuate existing misperceptions.

On average, source credibility labels don’t change whether someone reads low-quality news sources — but it does appear to improve the news diet quality of the heaviest consumers of misinformation.

Twitter’s decision to deactivate trending topics in Ethiopia did not reduce the volume or toxicity of tweets about the civil war.

A look at our top articles, events, and more from the past year.

Congress should mandate an unprecedented corporate data-sharing program to enable outside, independent researchers to conduct the kinds of analysis on social media platforms that firm insiders routinely perform.

With access to these documents, scholars could support the media, public, and policymakers in identifying where Facebook’s internal research is conclusive, what inferences can be drawn, which topics require more evidence and future research, and what that research should be.

As the Facebook Papers revelations continue, it’s critical for the government, through legislation or regulation, to require social media platforms to be more transparent and open up more data to outside researchers.

Craig Newmark Philanthropies donates $350,000 to fund new multilingual research on the types of disinformation communities are exposed to during elections.

In 2020, Craig Newmark Philanthropies donated $400,000 to support our PhD students, ensuring they could continue their research projects examining some of the biggest questions at the intersection of social media and democracy. Here is an update on what they've been working on this past year thanks to Craig's generous support.

Joshua A. Tucker discusses the future of social media research as false information about COVID-19 spreads alongside the disease itself.

A new book argues academic researchers should have more access to the data locked inside Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms.

This explains how social media can both weaken — and strengthen — democracy. Groups opposed to fundamental tenets of liberal democracy also have found their megaphone.

Older adults, Republicans, and independents, according to our research.

Our research shows political bubbles, or echo chambers, are not as widespread as many pundits make them out to be.

NYU has established the Center for Social Media and Politics, which will examine the production, flow, and impact of social media content in the political sphere, as well as support research that uses social media data to study politics.

In general, people don't tend to share a lot of links to fake news websites, but those that do are more likely to be older and more politically conservative.