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Philipp Lorenz-Spreen

@lorenzspreen.eurosky.social
11K followers 731 following 314 posts

Heading the Computational Social Science group within SynoSys & ifK at TU Dresden, where we study how online information environments impact public discourse and develop alternatives that benefit democracy. Views are my own. synosys.github.io

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Reposted by Philipp Lorenz-Spreen
Ken Benoit @kenbenoit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
quallmer 0.5.0 is now on CRAN: the R package Seraphine Maerz and I are building for LLM-assisted qualitative coding. This release adds robustness, more models, and multimodal input. 🧵 quallmer.github.io/quallmer/ #rstats
quallmer.github.io
Qualitative Analysis with Large Language Models
Tools for AI-assisted qualitative data coding using large language models (LLMs) via the ellmer package, supporting providers including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Azure, and local models via Ollama. P...
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J Dierkes @dierkes.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
We're hiring at School of Social Sciences at Univ of Mannheim Full Professorship (W-3) in Social Data Science and Social Science Methodology Apply by Oct 22 2026 www.sowi.uni-mannheim.de/en/about/job... @methodsnet.bsky.social
sowi.uni-mannheim.de
Job Vacancies
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Andreas Küpfer @ankuepfer.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
📽️What do MPs communicate beyond their words? Our DFG project (w/ @chrisguarnold.bsky.social + @pluggedchris.bsky.social) studies not just what MPs say, but how and why they say it: voice, gestures, eye contact. We draw on 30,000+ hours of video from the German Bundestag and all 16 state parliaments.
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vortex_egg @vortexegg.com · 23/09/2026
I've been messing around with the new @mysky.social feed since it was announced, and it seems pretty good. Out of the box it feels comparable to the For You feed (the current best of breed), except MySky is highly user-configurable, including a neat debug view to see why you are seeing certain posts
Shannon Vallor
@shannonvallor.bsky.social7h
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Headed to Boston for this panel on AI and disagreement tomorrow at Harvard: the format is based on the 1970s Ethics in America PBS program - likely to be a very lively conversation, moderated by Lawrence Lessig. Join us if you’re in town!

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Luca Rossi @lrossi.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I've joined the editorial board of a Disinformation: An Interdisciplinary Journal (journals.sagepub.com/home/DIN ) . I'm in very good company and I'm sure this will evolve into an interesting venue for a lot of relevant research!
journals.sagepub.com
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
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Philipp Lorenz-Spreen @lorenzspreen.eurosky.social · 24/09/2026
Such a cool paper! 👇
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Alexander Wuttke @kunkakom.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
We are hiring at LMU Munich: two PhD positions and one postdoc on democracy, political psychology and computational social science. Start: January 2027 or as soon as possible. We review applications on a rolling basis until October 20. Details below. Reposts very welcome! 1/7
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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
New work featured in New Public!: There is no neutral feed algorithm. Each one makes source, ranking, & content diversity choices. @jonathanstray.com & I started MySky so you can see - and change! - these settings. Check it out here on Bluesky, in "Feeds" # newpublic.substack.com/p/meet-the-a...
newpublic.substack.com
🎛️📲 Meet the algorithm you can actually control and understand
Jonathan Stray and Renée DiResta introduce MySky, a feed that shows its work
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Jason W. Burton @jasonburton.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Is human culture purely a product of bottom-up "social tinkering?" Or is it designed? In our commentary on Chater and Christiansen, @lorenzspreen.eurosky.social,
Ralph Hertwig, and I argue that we should pay more attention to the designed environments in which cultural evolution occurs.
cambridge.org
Social tinkering in designed environments | Behavioral and Brain Sciences | Cambridge Core
Social tinkering in designed environments - Volume 49
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New_ Public @newpublic.org · 21/09/2026
Social media algorithms don't allow us to understand or control what we see online and why... until now! Top scholars @jonathanstray.com and @noupside.bsky.social are sharing @mysky.social, a tool that allows users to adjust their feed’s priorities and explains why certain posts appear over others.
newpublic.substack.com
🎛️📲 Meet the algorithm you can actually control and understand
Jonathan Stray and Renée DiResta introduce MySky, a feed that shows its work
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Alex Crits-Christoph @acritschristoph.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
oh this is a cool feed:
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Juraj Medzihorsky @medzihorsky.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
A greyscale newspaper cartoon. It shows a plumber and another man looking pensively at a leaking exposed pipe on the wall in what seems like a basement. The plumber is saying something and the man is listening. Both look concerned. The caption reads

"Can't help you with that, the water's gone rogue."
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Dylan Hadfield-Menell @dhadfieldmenell.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Try out this feed! It’s the result of a massive amount of research on how to build beneficial recommendations. It’s the first real workable implementation of a choose your algorithm system and it will be good for you and the broader ecosystem. Courtesy of the great @jonathanstray.com
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Torsten Goerke (verified 🤜 🤛) 🎛️🎹🔊🎚️🎧📟🔌🐸 @tgoerke.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Also looking forward to the opening keynote by Philipp @lorenzspreen.eurosky.social on digital media, the public sphere, and democracy. Philipp kicks off #GeNeMe2026 before our panel (🙂just realized when looking up the full agenda). See you Thursday!
geneme.de
Communities in New Media [GeNeMe]
GeNeMe 2026 will take place from September 16 to 18, 2026 at the TUD Dresden University of Technology and will deal with online communities from the perspective of several disciplines.
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Matt Bors @mattbors.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
It was exactly ten years ago today, on my 33rd birthday, that I posted this comic online.
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Philipp Lorenz-Spreen @lorenzspreen.eurosky.social · 14/09/2026
As with other technologies, AI is developed by people and can therefore be regulated and shaped by us; it is neither a force of nature nor extraterrestrial life nor magic.
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Tony Zhou @tyzhou.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Bluesky gives users the power to choose their algorithms, but how does this actually work in practice? In our new preprint, we explore the ecosystem of Bluesky custom feeds and the feed creators behind them! 🧵 arxiv.org/abs/2609.12958
arxiv.org
Middleware for Feed Recommendation in Practice: How Feed Creators Build, Maintain, and Sustain Custom Feeds on Bluesky
Scholars have long proposed third-party middleware as an alternative to centralized algorithmic feeds: feeds built and distributed by independent feed creators. This vision saw no large-scale instanti...
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Matt Henderson @matthen.com · 13/09/2026
Approximating the Lorenz attractor with a chaotic leaky water wheel. The orange dot is the centre of mass of the water. It traces (a projection of) the familiar attractor as the wheel spins seemingly randomly left and right.
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Computational Communication Science Lab (CCL) @compcommlab.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
📢 We’re hiring a Postdoc in Computational Communication Science at the University of Vienna! 🔎 Text/image analysis, platform data & political communication 📍 Vienna ⏳ 6 years, full-time ⏰ Apply by 3 Oct jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Universi... Find out more about our team here: compcommlab.univie.ac.at
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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Have seen this Nature piece about the effects of X's algorithm mentioned again and it bears repeating; exposure to a right wing algorithm makes you - measurably and predictably - more right wing, even after you stop using it. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
The political effects of X’s feed algorithm - Nature
Among users initially on a chronological feed, 7 weeks of exposure to X’s algorithmic feed in 2023 shifted political attitudes and account-following behaviour in a more conservative direction compared...
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Georg Diez @georgdiez.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Alles, was in Sachsen-Anhalt passiert ist, war zu erwarten. Und alles hat Gründe. Die Frage ist: Reagieren die, die die Macht und Verantwortung haben, endlich? Und reagieren sie richtig? Hier meine Gedanken zur organisierten Ambitionslosigkeit der Macht. georgdiez.substack.com/p/frontier-p...
georgdiez.substack.com
Frontier Politics
Technologie und die organisierte Ambitionslosigkeit der Macht
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Lena Hahn @lenahahn.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Excited and looking forward to the panel discussion with @kaisassenberg.bsky.social @evalottabrakemeier.bsky.social @rimamrahal.bsky.social @lewan.uk & G.-J. Hogrefe on populist politics as a threat to academic freedom at #DGPs2026 📆Wednesday, 9 September, 🕧1:45PM, 📍 Room Plenary 1 #psychscisky
Populist politics as a threat to academic freedom - Where do we stand? What? Panel discussion, When? Wednesday, 9 September 2026, 1:45-2:45pm, Where? Room Plenary 1 at the 54. DGPs Congress in Luxemburg. Below this information are pictures of Eva-Lotta Brakemeier, G.-Jürgen Hogrefe, Lena Hahn, Stephan Lewandowsky, Rima Maria Rahal and Kai Sassenberg.
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Philipp Lorenz-Spreen @lorenzspreen.eurosky.social · 06/09/2026
Horrible election results today. Again, we need to urgently understand how to repair things. I know there are many factors, but at least one is a fragmented, commercialised information system that favors populism and propaganda. No force of nature, but exploitative technology that can be changed.
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Vincent Arel-Bundock @vincentab.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Big news! 🎉 𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚕𝚎𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚜 1.0.0 for #Rstats is out. It’s a big number and it feels like a big step. I wrote a blog on the challenges of interpreting statistical models, SPEED, cool new features, the future, and a 5 year package development and writing odyssey. arelbundock.com/posts/margin...
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Jen , the MT liberal bird lady @liberal-jen.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
A murmuration of starlings above Sardinia, Italy. One of my favorite natural phenomena.
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Philipp Lorenz-Spreen @lorenzspreen.eurosky.social · 01/09/2026
It is with great honor and joy that today I start my new position as Professor of Computational Social Science at @tudresden.bsky.social With a fantastic team and so many collaborators (past and present), I feel very privileged to continue researching and teaching about digitalization and society!
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Przemek Grabowicz 🇵🇱🇪🇸🇩🇪🇺🇸🇮🇪 @przemyslslaw.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Our opinion article about "Research Opportunities and Challenges of the EU’s Digital Services Act" is out in CACM! cacm.acm.org/opinion/rese...
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Kai Kupferschmidt @kakape.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Feeling very honored and grateful today. Some of the journalists whose work I admire most have received this prize in the past and at a time when journalism is under threat in so many ways it’s just really heartening to be recognized by people who care deeply about journalism.
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Philipp Lorenz-Spreen @lorenzspreen.eurosky.social · 31/08/2026
This is significant indeed, with potentially huge implications for research and data access to study those systems:
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Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 31/08/2026
I am once again begging everyone who supervises student theses to stop making students conduct mediation analyses because “a regression isn’t complicated enough for a thesis” 😭
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Katrin Weller @kwelle.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Job opening with my colleagues at GESIS Knowledge Technologies for the Social Science Department: gesis.jobs.personio.de/job/2765070?... #ResearchData #FAIR #FAIRdata #researchinfrastructure
gesis.jobs.personio.de
Forschungsdatenmanager*in (Postdoc) für die Erstellung von Harvestingnetzwerken (KTS-84) | Jobs at GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften
GESIS is one of the world's leading social science infrastructure facilities, supporting researchers at all levels of their research projects with expertise and infrastructure services. We help ensure...
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Claire E. Robertson, PhD @crobertson500.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Is social media truly making us more politically polarized, or does it simply over-represent our most extreme opinions? In our new preprint, @small-schulz.bsky.social and I present *punishing evidence* that social media systematically overrepresents users’ most extreme political opinions. 1/n
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Philipp Lorenz-Spreen @lorenzspreen.eurosky.social · 23/08/2026
Exactly what we are working on and good to see it formulated so clearly. But that will require very serious investments into technical capacity and experimentation (we can tell from our own experiments), just a fraction of what has flown into the private version of it will be a lot.
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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
“X’s algorithm learns what you hate and shows you more of it, according to a new study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” www.404media.co/xs-algorithm...
404media.co
X's Algorithm Feeds Off Ragebait and Impacts Democrats More, Study Finds
X is driving engagement by making users fight in the replies.
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Jonathan Stray @jonathanstray.com · 11/08/2026
GreenEarth is the first feed which gives you full control over the algorithm. Here's our new "post sources" control panel, which lets you adjust the mix of in-network vs. out-of-network posts. Have you tried it yet? go.greenearth.social/r/ptryit
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Jonathan Stray @jonathanstray.com · 06/08/2026
We've said many times that the GreenEarth feeds are designed for "constructive" conversation. Here's what that means to us, how we implemented it, and what our fancy future plans are. www.greenearth.social/p/what-does-...
greenearth.social
What Does Constructive Mean?
How our “bridging” algorithms actually work, and our future plans.
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Jamie Cummins @jamiecummins.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Psychological Science is running a special issue on "Advancing Psychological Science using Large Language Models", co-edited by me and @ruben.the100.ci. Check out the calls for submissions below! www.psychologicalscience.org/publications...
psychologicalscience.org
Special Issue Call for Submissions: “Advancing Psychological Science using Large Language Models”
Editors: Jamie Cummins and Ruben C. ArslanPsychological Science invites submissions for a special issue on psychological science involving large language models. We welcome theoretically and empirical...
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International Conference on Computational Social Science @ic2s2.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
That's a wrap on IC2S2 2026... we'll see you next year in Milan! 😍
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Jonathan Stray @jonathanstray.com · 16/07/2026
GreenEarth (@greenearth-social.bsky.social) will be the first feed to explain the algorithm, tell you why you got each post, and let you adjust all the parameters. Here's an early version running on our staging server. We're ~2 weeks away from public beta.
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Eurosky Sebastian @sebastian.eurosky.social · 16/07/2026
Excuse us, can we interest you in some healthy algorithms?
photo of philipp and myself
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Modal Foundation @modalfoundation.eurosky.social · 16/07/2026
Pleased to share that our flagship @eurosky.social project is collaborating with Germany's Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation (SPRIND) to explore algorithms to improve online conversations and increase understanding. eurosky.tech/news/eurosky...
eurosky.tech
Eurosky is collaborating with SPRIND to test a non-toxic algorithm for the first time - Eurosky
Eurosky is a European initiative to build and operate sovereign social web infrastructure
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Robin Berjon @robin.berjon.com · 16/07/2026
Do you like your social media less toxic? Yeah, we do too. @eurosky.social and Germany's Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation (SPRIND) just signed an agreement to collaborate on precisely that: eurosky.tech/news/eurosky...
eurosky.tech
Eurosky is collaborating with SPRIND to test a non-toxic algorithm for the first time - Eurosky
Eurosky is a European initiative to build and operate sovereign social web infrastructure
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Philipp Lorenz-Spreen @lorenzspreen.eurosky.social · 16/07/2026
Ich freue mich schon sehr auf diese besondere Zusammenarbeit und auf die Möglichkeit, alternative News Feed Algorithmen außerhalb des Labors zu testen – in der Praxis und unter realistischen Bedingungen!
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Eurosky Sebastian @sebastian.eurosky.social · 16/07/2026
@eurosky.social 🤝 @sprind-de.bsky.social 🤝 @tudresden.bsky.social Zusammen mit der TU Dresden entwickelt Eurosky einen Open Source Bridging Algorithmus für SM. Ich freue mich riesig über diese Zusammenarbeit mit @lorenzspreen.eurosky.social und die Unterstützung durch SPRIN-D bei diesem Vorhaben.
eurosky.tech
Eurosky is collaborating with SPRIND to test a non-toxic algorithm for the first time - Eurosky
Eurosky is a European initiative to build and operate sovereign social web infrastructure
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HIFMB @hifmb.de · 07/07/2026
@thilogross.bsky.social has shared with us how to tackle this and other challenges facing transdisciplinary research. Read the full interview here: hifmb.de/the-idea-beh... The call for the Human Progress project with 5 postdoc positions is open until July 20. @awi.de
Image with a quote by Prof. Thilo Gross: “Every academic discipline has a corpus of methods and picks its battles accordingly. If we encounter a problem for which we don’t have the right tools, it is easy to dismiss it as intractable, boring and not worthy of attention. This creates the biggest problem in interdisciplinary research: agreeing on what is a cool problem and what are the standards of success.”
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Philipp Lorenz-Spreen @lorenzspreen.eurosky.social · 06/07/2026
Updated preprint from our group: led by @saminenno.bsky.social we use text-based disinformation tracking to study distribution and dynamics of fact-checked claims. We find that their appearance is highly concentrated and starts on Social Media before reaching traditional media + fact checks, more 👇
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Sami Nenno @saminenno.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
The content of political disinformation is repetitive, not diverse. In a new preprint, we track fact-checked claims in politicians’ posts and mainstream news from 🇺🇸🇬🇧🇩🇪. We find that a few false claims make up a large share of disinformation. Some appear hundreds or even thousands of times. 🧵1/7
Multi-panel scatter plot showing when disinformation claims appeared in social media posts and news from 2017 to 2026. The top panels show Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States; the bottom panel shows U.S. news articles. Each dot represents posts or articles matched to a fact-checked disinformation claim. Larger and darker dots mean the same claim appeared more often. The largest dot is in the U.S. panel and represents 1,918 appearances of one claim. Dot colors show the policy issue, including health, immigration, macroeconomics, environment, energy, law and crime, government operations, and other topics. Dashed vertical lines mark general elections. The figure shows that disinformation is concentrated in a small number of repeatedly used claims, especially in the United States, and that some claims later appear in mainstream news. Arrows connect U.S. social media claims to matching U.S. news articles for the 10 claims most often found in news.
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Eurosky Sebastian @sebastian.eurosky.social · 04/07/2026
Wir haben mir @eurosky.social einen ForYou Feed analog zu dem von @spacecowboy17.bsky.social entwickelt. Wäre super, wenn ihr den mal ausprobieren könntet und uns Rückmeldung gebt, wie er euch gefällt. bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ooensn4mr5…
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Dirk Wulff @dirkwulff.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
🚨 Now out in PNAS In decision research, "talk is cheap." We show it isn't. Using LLMs to analyze participants' free-text explanations of their choices, we find verbal reports are a rich, scalable window into how people actually decide. 🔗 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Led by Kamil Fulawka
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Roman Senninger @rsenninger.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
The Department of Political Science at Aarhus University is hiring both Assistant Professors and Associate Professors. Assistant Professor: international.au.dk/about/profil... Associate Professor: international.au.dk/about/profil... Please share these opportunities with your networks!
international.au.dk
Assistant Professor in Political Science - Vacancy at Aarhus University
Vacancy at Department of Political Science, Aarhus University
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