iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

More datasets (e.g. mobile app usage and social media data) are coming soon! (Track here: nationalinternetobservatory.org/researchers....) See you all in Burlington, Vermont on July 28 to discuss new modes of data collection and how we can continue to conduct meaningful CSS research together! (7/7)

nationalinternetobservatory.org

For Researchers

The National Internet Observatory aims to help researchers understand how people behave online and how platforms structure what people see. This will be accomplished through creating a large panel of ...

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Many datasets from the NIO are already open to applications for access from researchers! e.g. interactions with ChatGPT and Gemini, and Google and Bing search data (both traditional search results and AI overviews!) (6/7)

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

This tutorial will present NIO's informed data donation process, participant demographics and behavioral traces across desktop and mobile devices, pathways for data access, and examples of analyses and new cross-disciplinary and cross-platform CSS research enabled by this new source of data! (5/7)

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Content viewing (what content people are exposed to online/exposure behavior) is THE predominant form of online activity! But it is massively under-explored relative to production behavior (or what the few active social media users post online) (4/7)

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

This tutorial introduces the National Internet Observatory (NIO), an alternative data collection framework and infrastructure designed to help researchers study online behavior, with a particular focus on content viewing: (3/7)

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

More details in this thread below and the website: national-internet-observatory.github.io/beyondapi_ic... Sign up here: forms.gle/CUZh5b93PXBZ... (2/7)

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

How to obtain data for CSS research in the Post-API age? And what if you can access a treasure trove of cross-platform, cross-device online activity data for your research? 👀 Come to our @ic2s2.bsky.social 2026 Tutorial in Vermont in ~3 weeks! (organized w/ @davidlazer.bsky.social) (1/7)

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Happening in less than a week! June 22, 9 AM in Daytona Beach! View details and sign up now: forms.gle/rA1XxibZ2ydX...

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

We'll discuss NIO's informed data donation process, participant demographics and behavioral traces, pathways for secure data access, and examples of analyses and innovative research with this new source of data for the social networks community. See you all in Florida!

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

e.g. Google and Bing search data, data on time spent on various webpages by users, conversations that web users are having with ChatGPT and Gemini, and one of the first at-scale mobile network traffic trace data!

nationalinternetobservatory.org

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

This is a vital, new source of data, and a crucial methodology for collecting data for academic research via data donations in the post-API age! Many datasets from the NIO are already open to applications for access from researchers!

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

... with a particular focus on content viewing — the predominant (and a drastically understudied) form of online activity!

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

This workshop will introduce the conference participants to the National Internet Observatory (NIO), an alternative data-collection framework and infrastructure to help researchers study online behavior...

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

More details in this thread below and the website: national-internet-observatory.github.io/beyondapi_su... Sign up here: forms.gle/rA1XxibZ2ydX...

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Let's discuss Internet data collection in the Post-API age at the Sunbelt conference in Daytona Beach, Florida (Jun 22)! @insna.bsky.social (organized w/ @davidlazer.bsky.social) + learn about a unique online activity dataset to enable cross-platform social network and social science research 👀

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Happening in just a week (June 1) in Boston-Cambridge! Come learn about a new, unique source of data for your network science and computational social science research! (Sign up here: forms.gle/sgjVPMSNWYeY...)

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

In just a week, in LA! A new, crucial resource for the computational social science community! (Sign up at forms.gle/DQk8PFGXHhy2...)

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Happening in Boston in exactly 3 weeks! Come learn about how to collect online activity data in the post-API age to conduct network science research! And the treasure trove of already collected and processed data you could gain access to 👀 Sign up here (limited capacity): forms.gle/sgjVPMSNWYeY...

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Happening in exactly 3 weeks! (Please sign up! forms.gle/DQk8PFGXHhy2...)

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Reposted by Pranav Goel

Kevin Yang @yang3kc.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

🚨 New preprint alert: we analyzed how social scientists use social media data for empirical research, drawing data from 59 journals, 5 social science disciplines + interdisciplinary, 2010–2024. Link: doi.org/10.31235/osf... Details in 🧵 1/8

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

More datasets (e.g. mobile app usage and social media data) are coming soon! (Track here: nationalinternetobservatory.org/researchers....) See you all in LA on May 26 to discuss new modes of data collection and how we continue to conduct meaningful CSS research together! (7/7)

nationalinternetobservatory.org

For Researchers

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Many datasets from the NIO are already open to applications for access from researchers! e.g. Google and Bing search data, data on time spent on various webpages by users, and conversations that web users are having with ChatGPT and Gemini. (6/7)

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Content viewing (what content people are exposed to online/exposure behavior) is THE predominant form of online activity! But it is massively underexplored relative to production behavior (or what the few active social media users post online) (4/7)

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

More details in this thread below and the website: national-internet-observatory.github.io/beyondapi_ic... Sign up here: forms.gle/DQk8PFGXHhy2... (2/7)

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

How to obtain online activity data for research in the Post-API age? And what if there's already a unique collection of online activity data that you could obtain access to for your research? 👀 Come to our tutorial (organized w/ @davidlazer.bsky.social ) at @icwsm.bsky.social 2026 in LA! (1/7)

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Reposted by Pranav Goel

David Lazer @davidlazer.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

Going to Netsci in Boston in June? Interested in access to data from the National Internet Observatory, including our RFPs on AI chatbots, browsing behavior, search, and more to come over the next few months? Sign up for our workshop at Netsci: national-internet-observatory.github.io/beyondapi_ne...

national-internet-observatory.github.io

Beyond APIs: Collecting Web Data for Research using the National Internet Observatory

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

We will also have interactive activities and hands-on sessions with real network datasets that demonstrate NIO's capabilities for enabling novel cross-disciplinary and cross-platform research across web and social network environments!

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

We will discuss NIO's informed data donation process, participant demographics and behavioral traces, secure computing infrastructure and pathways for data access, and examples of analyses and innovative research with this new source of data for the network science community.

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

This is a vital source of data, and a crucial methodology for collecting data for academic research in the post-API age! Track existing datasets open to request for research proposals at nationalinternetobservatory.org/researchers....

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

an alternative data-collection framework and infrastructure to help researchers study online behavior, with a particular focus on content viewing — the predominant (and a very understudied) form of online activity.

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Very excited to announce a new satellite coming to NetSci 2026 @netsciconf.bsky.social, co-organized with Scott Cambo and @davidlazer.bsky.social! More details in this thread and the website (national-internet-observatory.github.io/beyondapi_ne...) Sign up here: forms.gle/sgjVPMSNWYeY...

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Reposted by Pranav Goel

Data & Society @datasociety.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

AI data centers are straining already fragile power and water infrastructures in communities around the world, leading to blackouts and water shortages. “Data centers are where environmental and social issues meet,” says Rosi Leonard, an environmentalist with @foeireland.bsky.social.

nytimes.com

From Mexico to Ireland, Fury Mounts Over a Global A.I. Frenzy

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Alexander Hoyle @alexanderhoyle.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

LLMs are often used for text annotation, especially in social science. In some cases, this involves placing text items on a scale: eg, 1 for liberal and 9 for conservative There are a few ways to accomplish this task. Which work best? Our new EMNLP paper has some answers🧵 arxiv.org/pdf/2507.00828

A diagram illustrating pointwise scoring with a large language model (LLM). At the top is a text box containing instructions: 'You will see the text of a political advertisement about a candidate. Rate it on a scale ranging from 1 to 9, where 1 indicates a positive view of the candidate and 9 indicates a negative view of the candidate.' Below this is a green text box containing an example ad text: 'Joe Biden is going to eat your grandchildren for dinner.' An arrow points down from this text to an illustration of a computer with 'LLM' displayed on its monitor. Finally, an arrow points from the computer down to the number '9' in large teal text, representing the LLM's scoring output. This diagram demonstrates how an LLM directly assigns a numerical score to text based on given criteria

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Reposted by Pranav Goel

Kevin Yang @yang3kc.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

ICYMI, our DomainDemo dataset, which describes how different demographic groups share domains on Twitter, is now available to download! 📄 Data descriptor: doi.org/10.1038/s415... 📈 Interactive app to explore the data: domaindemo.info 💽 Dataset: doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

doi.org

DomainDemo: a dataset of domain-sharing activities among different demographic groups on Twitter - Scientific Data

Scientific Data - DomainDemo: a dataset of domain-sharing activities among different demographic groups on Twitter

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

For more, check out the paper! nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02223-4 arxiv.org/abs/2308.06459

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

For journalists and especially headline writers: even if a discrete piece of information is true, you've got to think carefully about whether the way you're presenting it is useful for promoting narratives that aren't.

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Big picture: misleading claims are both *more prevalent* and *harder to moderate* than implied in current misinformation research. It's not as simple as fact-checking false claims or downranking/blocking unreliable domains. The extent to which information (mis)informs depends on how it is used!

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

If you want to advance misleading narratives — such as COVID-19 vaccine skepticism — supporting information from reliable sources is more useful than similar information from unreliable sources, if you have it.

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

This calls for a reconsideration of what misinformation is, how widespread it is, and the extent to which it can be moderated. Our core claim is that users are *using* information to promote their identities and advance their interests, not merely consuming information for its truth value.

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

We find that mainstream stories with high scores on this measure are significantly more likely to contain narratives present in misinformation content. This suggests that reliable information — which has a much wider audience — can be repurposed by users promoting potentially misleading narratives.

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

We do this by looking at co-sharing behavior on Twitter/X. We first identify users who frequently share information from unreliable sources, and then examine the information from reliable sources that those same users also share at disproportionate rates.

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Our paper uses this dynamic — users strategically repurposing true information from reliable sources to advance misleading narratives — to move beyond conceptualizing misinformation as source reliability and measuring it by just counting sharing of / exposure to unreliable sources.

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Take, for example, this headline from the Washington Post. The source is reliable and the information is, strictly speaking, true. But the people most excited to share this story wanted to advance a misleading claim: that the COVID-19 vaccine was ineffective at best.

Washington Post article: screenshot of the headline "Vaccinated people now make up a majority of covid deaths"

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Pranav Goel @pranavgoel.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

But users who want to advance misleading claims likely *prefer* to use reliable sources when they can. They know others see reliable sources as more credible!

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