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Max Falkenberg

@maxfalken.bsky.social
1.7K followers 822 following 146 posts

Computational Social Scientist. Interested in the structures of polarization. Associate Professor, King's College London. maxfalkenberg.com

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Reposted by Max Falkenberg
Quantian @quantian.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Dancing very very VERY close to saying “OpenAI stole our almost-complete proof of Navier-Stokes from internal access to our ChatGPT sessions because they were desperate to scoop Anthropic” which is absolutely 100% a believable thing OpenAI would do right now cims.nyu.edu/~tristanb/st...
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Misha Teplitskiy | Science of science | on LinkedIn mostly @innovation.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
How should we deter student from cheating?? Well, if history is any guide...
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Nature Portfolio @natureportfolio.nature.com · 06/09/2026
Nearly half of all polarization research focuses on the US, yet many American findings are global outliers. A Review in Nature Communications argues that a globally equitable understanding requires bridging traditional social science with new approaches leveraging social media and AI. 🧪
go.nature.com
Toward an integrated and globally equitable understanding of political polarization - Nature Communications
Nearly half of all polarization research focuses on the United States, yet many American findings are global outliers. A globally equitable understanding requires bridging traditional social science with new approaches leveraging social media and AI.
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Timothy Caulfield @caulfieldtim.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
"What has fundamentally changed is the emergence of the information age (the internet, social media, AI) and its integration into, and domination over, our contemporary political discourse." Needed: a globally equitable understanding of political polarization www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Toward an integrated and globally equitable understanding of political polarization - Nature Communications
Nearly half of all polarization research focuses on the United States, yet many American findings are global outliers. A globally equitable understanding requires bridging traditional social science w...
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Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
We need to understand political polarization through a global lens: Evidence from 53 countries suggests that high levels of affective polarization are correlated with democratic backsliding, but high levels of ideological polarization are not. www.nature.com/articles/s41...,
nature.com
Toward an integrated and globally equitable understanding of political polarization - Nature Communications
Nearly half of all polarization research focuses on the United States, yet many American findings are global outliers. A globally equitable understanding requires bridging traditional social science w...
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Max Falkenberg @maxfalken.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Is the world getting more polarized? The polarization of the U.S. is worrying. But is polarization similarly bad elsewhere? What drives polarization globally, what role does social media play, and will AI make things worse? New review in @nature.com communications: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
lnkd.in
LinkedIn
This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn
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Max Falkenberg @maxfalken.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
"The EU's DSA has the potential to transform social media research, but only if its data access provisions are interpreted with the empirical realities of sampling bias in mind... Partial data access is, in many cases, equivalent to no meaningful access at all." New preprint: osf.io/preprints/so...
osf.io
OSF
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Elisa Omodei @elisaomodei.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
🚨 Come join @ceu-dnds.bsky.social as an 𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗿! 🚨 We are looking for a young and coming researcher in 𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 and 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝘂𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲. If that sounds like you (or someone you know), check out the call & apply (or share the link): careers.ceu.edu/job/Vienna-A...
careers.ceu.edu
Assistant Professor (f/m/d)
Assistant Professor (f/m/d)
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Max Falkenberg @maxfalken.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
I am very happy to share that as of June 2026, I will be joining the Informatics department @ KCL as an AI+ Senior Research Fellow (Senior Lecturer / Associate Professor). I am very grateful to everyone who has supported me on the way and excited to be continuing my research at King's 🎉
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Joe Tidy BBC News @joetidy.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
Another Cloudflare outage. On Friday at business time for the UK and many other parts of the world. This was a scheduled thing that seems to have failed. There is something deliberate in the timings of these 'maintenance gone wrong events'. The rest of the world suffers whilst the US sleeps.
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CS2Italy @cs2italy.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
🔈 *Call for Participation* 🔈 Italian Conference on Computational Social Science – CS2Italy May 19-21, 2026 in Torino, Italy Premier venue for Computational Social Science in Italy: #sociology #polisci #economics #netsci #complexsystems ++ Submit your abstract by Jan 15: cs2italy.org plz reshare
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
Just occurred that the BBC is the most literal example of Conquest's third law in that it is actually run by a cabal of its enemies.
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Tiago Peixoto @tiago.skewed.de · 09/11/2025
Firing a BBC director for *leftist* bias is like punishing a pig for taking a bath.
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Max Falkenberg @maxfalken.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
Spoke to the BBC about how Grok is facilitating the abuse of politicians on X. Abusive messaging on X is not new (we studied it here: www.nature.com/articles/s41... ), but the enhanced visibility of Grok posts will increase engagement with this content. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
MP wants Musk's Grok chatbot shut down over claim he enabled grooming gangs
SNP MP Pete Wishart says he is seeking legal advice over the
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Max Falkenberg @maxfalken.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
It is hard to overstate the number of academic hours which are wasted on fruitless funding applications 👇
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depths of wikipedia @depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social · 01/11/2025
If you're in need of positive and rather wholesome news, there's a high school teacher named Bryan who took a ton of freely licensed celebrity headshots at the New York Film Festival last month for Wikipedia, and I truly can't believe how drastic the upgrade is for some articles (thread)
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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 23/10/2025
The EBU just published a new report on how well consumer AI chatbots function as gateways to news by public service media – an interesting piece, but with some big problems in my view that make me question its usefulness. buff.ly/X9ident
ebu.ch
Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory
New research coordinated by the EBU and led by the BBC has found that AI assistants routinely distort or misrepresent public service journalism.
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Max Falkenberg @maxfalken.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
Competition for ERC Starting Grants up 38% in two years. No increase in the number of grants awarded and no increase in grant value. Result: more academic hours wasted on fruitless, bureaucratic grant applications instead of research erc.europa.eu/news-events/...
erc.europa.eu
Starting Grants 2026 applications: Facts and figures
The ERC Starting Grants 2026 call closed for applications on 14 October 2025. These are the preliminary data on submitted proposals:
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Inverse Complexity Lab @invcomplexity.skewed.de · 08/08/2025
Last week we had our second “Inverse Complexity Lab Retreat” at wonderful Traunkirchen! skewed.de/lab/group.ht... Nothing like eldritch C++ incantations by the sunny lakeside! 🏖️
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Max Falkenberg @maxfalken.bsky.social · 27/07/2025
General reminder: Good internet regulation is not easy if you're a small island with little real influence.
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Inverse Complexity Lab @invcomplexity.skewed.de · 22/07/2025
New preprint: “Multiscale patterns of migration flows in Austria: regionalization, administrative barriers, and urban-rural divides”, with @thomrobiglio.bsky.social, Martina Contisciani, @martonkarsai.bsky.social, arxiv.org/abs/2507.11503
arxiv.org
Multiscale patterns of migration flows in Austria: regionalization, administrative barriers, and urban-rural divides
Migration is central in various societal problems related to socioeconomic development. While much of the existing research has focused on international migration, migration patterns within a single c...
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Bojan Evkoski @bojanevkoski.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
🧵 New preprint! Do online mental health communities form patterns of association that mirror diagnostic systems or challenge them? “Network Analysis of Reddit Mental Health Communities: Mapping the Interconnectedness of Psychopathology” 👉 osf.io/7dfcw_v1 @ceu-dnds.bsky.social Short thread: 1/N
osf.io
OSF
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Inverse Complexity Lab @invcomplexity.skewed.de · 29/06/2025
Are you from the US and would like to work as a postdoc in Austria, maybe in our lab? 25 new fellowships will be available in July from the @oeaw.bsky.social: www.oeaw.ac.at/en/news/25-n... If you are interested; get in touch!
oeaw.ac.at
25 new scholarships for US researchers
Fonds Zukunft Österreich (FZÖ) is providing €10 million in funding for an academy program to bring postdocs from the USA to Austria ++ Faßmann: “The right signal in these turbulent times”
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Luca Maria Aiello @lajello.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Testing LLMs in the Prisoner’s Dilemma to reveal their moral biases. LLMs can defect often but become more forgiving and less retaliatory than humans when opponents are mostly cooperative. Nicolò Fontana at #ICWSM. w @frapierri.bsky.social Paper: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/IC...
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Luca Maria Aiello @lajello.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
Kicking off #ICWSM with the DETOX workshop and @maxfalken.bsky.social’s keynote on why the Web is not a set of siloed platforms and why we should not study it as such. Shows why deplatforming doesn’t work exactly as we expect and why large online platforms are plagued by affective polarization
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Tiago Peixoto @tiago.skewed.de · 22/06/2025
Here's another paper by Shalizi showing how inferring *latent* homophily allows for disentangling from contagion. Bizarre how this gets overlooked, since it's obvious that homophily leaves huge traces in the network structure, while contagion changes nothing. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
Estimating Causal Peer Influence in Homophilous Social Networks by Inferring Latent Locations
Social influence cannot be identified from purely observational data on social networks, because such influence is generically confounded with latent homophily, that is, with a node’s network partn...
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Alan Jagolinzer @jagolinzer.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
The systemic impact of deplatforming on social media, featuring @maxfalken.bsky.social. From the Cambridge Disinformation Summit youtu.be/k5IA96g0U5s
youtu.be
The systemic impact of deplatforming on social media
YouTube video by Cambridge Disinformation Summit
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Max Falkenberg @maxfalken.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
No surprise that bank lending to the fossil fuel sector keeps rising 👇 Nadia Ameli and I recently wrote about why current banking regulations are insufficient and ineffective at limiting continued funding to the FF sector - call ordinated action is needed: www.thebanker.com/content/e812...
thebanker.com
Why banks’ fossil fuel policies fail
A system designed to share risk is preventing isolated bank policies from bearing fruit, and may lead to future systemic concerns
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 06/06/2025
Extremely fun little secret recording in @desmog.com by @geoffdembicki.bsky.social here - Lomborg just openly saying to the Fraser Institute that CCS wont' work but that it can be used to soak up subsidies www.desmog.com/2025/06/05/c...
desmog.com
Carbon Capture ‘Not Going to Happen,’ Top Fossil Fuel Advocate Predicts
In audio obtained by DeSmog, Bjorn Lomborg told a Fraser Institute event in Vancouver that the technology is way too expensive to be viable.
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Alexandre Bovet @abovet.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
@maxfalken.bsky.social on the importance of nuence when studying polarization at the social network session at #netsci2025
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Matteo Cinelli @matteocinelli.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Celebrating my first post on Bluesky with a picture of @abovet.bsky.social giving his invited talk at UNCSS today. The Satellite in running now at NetSci 2025. Feel free to join even for the last round of talks. Together with: @maxfalken.bsky.social & Alessandro Galeazzi
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Max Falkenberg @maxfalken.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
Looking forward to hosting this tomorrow! Lots of great talks! 👇
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Gale @galessandro.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
I can officially confirm my presence to the satellite! If I made it, you cannot miss.
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NetPlace @netplace.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
🎉 Very happy to announce Maxime Lucas @maximelca.bsky.social as our next panelist! Maxime is an FNRS Postdoc at the Namur Institute for Complex Systems & UCLouvain in Belgium. He is interested in dynamical systems, complex systems, networks, and their applications to life sciences.
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Max Falkenberg @maxfalken.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
Looking forward to our satellite on "Understudied Networks in Computational Social Science" next Tuesday (June 3) from 9am at @netsciconf.bsky.social Join us for 10 great talks discussing (Meta)Decidem, Tiktok, Bluesky, Wikidata, Painters, and more! galeale.github.io/UNCSS/?trk=f...
galeale.github.io
Understudied Networks in Computational Social Science
Understudied Networks in Computational Social Science
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Alan Jagolinzer @jagolinzer.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
Dr @maxfalken.bsky.social on the impact of social media deplatforming. From the Cambridge Disinformation Summit meetings. m.youtube.com/watch?v=k5IA...
m.youtube.com
The systemic impact of deplatforming on social media
YouTube video by Cambridge Disinformation Summit
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Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 21/05/2025
The rise (and fall?) of misinformation research.
Google scholar results for query "misinformation"
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Thomas Robiglio @thomrobiglio.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
🎙️Meet the chair of Data Stories: @maxfalken.bsky.social We're excited to welcome Max Falkenberg as chair of this year's Data Stories! 📅 Join Max and our speakers *TOMORROW*, Tuesday, May 20 1/n
events.ceu.edu
Data Stories (11th Edition)
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Jan Penfrat @ilumium.eupolicy.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/05/2025
For weeks I have been telling reporters that #Trump could have the power to switch off our tech in #Europe. It felt a bit alarmist until I just read the #Microsoft, on the behest of the #US gov has suspended the email account of Karim Khan, #ICC chief prosecutor. One of the most important […]
eupolicy.social
Original post on eupolicy.social
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Max Falkenberg @maxfalken.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
New Marie Curie initiative with €1.25bn of funding marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/news/marie-s... Scheme aims to address the "precarity of research careers"... Which is ironic, because the same programme required me to move country for a two year contract (albeit a very nice one)
marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu
Marie Skłodowska‑Curie Actions announce €1.25 billion to support cutting‑edge research and new pilot initiative ‘Choose Europe for Science’
In 2025, the MSCA will fund doctoral and postdoctoral programmes and collaborative research and innovation projects through various calls supporting around 10,000 researchers. ‘Choose Europe for Scien...
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Janne M. Korhonen @jmkorhonen.fi · 15/05/2025
Yeah. As a lapsed manufacturing engineer with some other surprisingly relevant hobbies, I always get a chuckle seeing the argument that a superintelligent brain in a vat could easily wipe out humanity. Possible, perhaps. Trivial? Nah. Smarts only gets you so far. An excellent illustration below.
The classic Then a miracle occurs cartoon: a black and white cartoon where two men are standing in front of a blackboard. The blackboard is covered with mathematical equations. In the middle, between two groups of complicated equations, there is written a text "Then a miracle occurs." The older man is pointing to it as the younger man looks from the side; the text at the bottom of the cartoon says "I think you should be more explicit here in step two." (Then a Miracle Occurs cartoon. Copyrighted artwork by Sydney Harris Inc.)
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Bojan Evkoski @bojanevkoski.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
Data Stories is next week! Join us to hear the invited talks and visit the poster exhibition 🎨 RSVP below 👇
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Central European University @weareceu.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
New study by Elisa Omodei @elisaomodei.bsky.social & @isifoundation.bsky.social co-authors finds that only 4–6.5% of links in Reddit climate discussions cite scientific sources, raising questions about the role of science in online climate discourse. 🔎 Read more: journals.plos.org/climate/arti...
journals.plos.org
The role of science in the climate change discussions on Reddit
Well-informed collective and individual action necessary to address climate change hinges on the public’s understanding of the relevant scientific findings. Social media has been a popular platform fo...
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Andrea Baronchelli @baronca.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
New paper alert. "More is different" & the LLMs. LLMs are usually studied in isolation. But what happens when they start interacting? We explored this by looking at their collective behaviour. Work with @ariel-flint.bsky.social and @lajello.bsky.social 1/
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Max Falkenberg @maxfalken.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
Very happy to be chairing this event next week 🎉 Come join us if you are in Vienna 🙏
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Neil Renic @ncrenic.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
This is bleak reading
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Marc Keuschnigg @marckeuschnigg.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
We are hiring postdocs in Computational Social Science 📍SweCSS, Norrköping, Sweden ⏰Deadline June 3 🔗https://liu.se/en/work-at-liu/vacancies/26854 Please apply // help us spread the word
Norrköping campus at sunset
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CEU Department of Network & Data Science @ceu-dnds.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
Meet 𝐓𝐨𝐛𝐢𝐚𝐬 𝐁𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐤, one of the keynote speakers at to present at #DataStoriesCEU! He works at the intersection of 𝗴𝗲𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗿𝘆 and 𝗵𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, focuses in interactive visualizations and developed a shape-shifting haptic device for VR. 𝐉𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐮𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟎, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓! 🔗More info: bit.ly/datastories25
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Jürgen Pfeffer @jurgenpfeffer.bsky.social · 11/05/2025
In the updated version, we can now estimate for the one day: - a total of 269 million posts produced - 176 years of videos uploaded - ~1/4 of videos gets deleted New version: www.arxiv.org/pdf/2504.13279 PS: Thanks for all your comments and questions. :)
arxiv.org
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Max Falkenberg @maxfalken.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
Cannot recommend more highly 👇
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