Mohsen Mosleh

@mmosleh.bsky.social

3.4K followers 630 following 5 posts

Prof @Oxford, Affiliate @MIT #SocialMedia #Misinformation #Polarization www.MohsenMosleh.com

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Engineering 22%

Communication & Media Studies 18%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by Mohsen Mosleh

Jenny Allen @jennyallen.bsky.social · 5d

Now in PNAS! With @mmosleh.bsky.social and @dgrand.bsky.social

Examining news engagement across 7 platforms, we find:
- differences WRT political lean ("echo platforms")
- similarities WRT news quality (posting low qual news => more engagement)

Read paper and thread for more!

Reposted by David G. Rand, Mohsen Mosleh

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 5d

"While high-quality content is posted more and receives more total engagement across platforms...a given author attracts higher levels of engagement when they post lower-quality content"

"pattern we find seems to be driven more by an underperformance of particularly popular high-quality outlets"

Divergent patterns of engagement with partisan and low-quality news across seven social media platforms | PNAS

In recent years, social media has become increasingly fragmented, as platforms evolve and new alternatives emerge. Yet most research studies a sing...

www.pnas.org

Reposted by Mohsen Mosleh

Oxford Internet Institute @oii.ox.ac.uk · 7d

New! Great piece by Tech and Science Post highlighting new research study examining partisan news sharing on social media platforms, lead author Dr @mmosleh.bsky.social, @oii.ox.ac.uk, co-authors Jennifer Allen and @dgrand.bsky.social. 1/2
techandsciencepost.com/news/other-s...

Low-quality news links draw higher engagement, no matter the political slant online - Tech and Science Post

The spread of dubious headlines on social media isn’t just a right-wing thing—it’s a social media thing, according to new research from Cornell. After studying millions of social media posts containin...

techandsciencepost.com

Reposted by Mohsen Mosleh

Oxford Internet Institute @oii.ox.ac.uk · 10d

NEW: In a recent Oxford-led study by @mmosleh.bsky.social, researchers analysed millions of social media posts containing links to news stories, across seven different social platforms.

Read the full research paper here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Reposted by Mohsen Mosleh

Oxford Internet Institute @oii.ox.ac.uk · Oct 2

According to @mmosleh.bsky.social and colleagues, information integrity can learn from the threat intelligence practices routinely utilized in cybersecurity.

Read the full @weforum.org piece here:
www.weforum.org/stories/2025...

Why cybersecurity and information integrity are two sides of the same coin

With cybercriminals increasingly employing both cybersecurity and information-integrity-related threats, both disciplines are now integrally linked.

www.weforum.org

Reposted by Mohsen Mosleh

Sarah Shugars @shugars.bsky.social · Aug 13

So many interesting findings in this work from @mmosleh.bsky.social and @dgrand.bsky.social comparing news sharing and engagement by quality and partisanship across 7 platforms

Notable partisan asymmetries. Low quality news gets more engagement, driven by traditional news getting poor engagement

Reposted by Joanna Bryson, Helen Margetts, Scott A. Hale , and 1 more Joanna Bryson, Helen Margetts, Scott A. Hale, Mohsen Mosleh

Kobi Hackenburg @kobihackenburg.bsky.social · Mar 7

📈Out today in @PNASNews!📈

In a large pre-registered experiment (n=25,982), we find evidence that scaling the size of LLMs yields sharply diminishing persuasive returns for static political messages.

🧵:

Reposted by Fabrizio Gilardi, Mohsen Mosleh

Meysam Alizadeh @malizadeh.bsky.social · Jul 18

🚨 New preprint alert:

We show that web-browsing GPT and LLaMA models can infer social media user demographics with reasonable accuracy—using only usernames.

This opens new possibilities for social media research in the post-API era but raises important privacy concerns.

Reposted by David G. Rand, Mohsen Mosleh

Oxford Internet Institute @oii.ox.ac.uk · Jul 16

New research! Experts from @oii.ox.ac.uk and @mitsloan.bsky.social explore how friends of friends become friends on social media platform X in new research published in @pnas.org. 1/4

Reposted by Mohsen Mosleh

Wolfson College Oxford @wolfsonoxford.bsky.social · Jul 2

Wolfson GBF Prof @mmosleh.bsky.social has co-authored a study revealing that posts made by Republican users on X are more than twice as likely to be flagged for misinformation than those by Democrats. Read more at our website: www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/news/misinfo...

Republican Tweets More Likely to be Flagged for Misinformation

New study by Wolfson Fellow finds Republicans’ posts are flagged twice as often as Democrats for misinformation on X’s Community Notes.

www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk

Reposted by John T. Jost, Gordon Pennycook, Max Grömping , and 1 more John T. Jost, Gordon Pennycook, Max Grömping, Mohsen Mosleh

David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · Jun 17

🚨In PNAS🚨
The right often accuses fact-checkers of political bias
But we analyzed Community Notes on Musk's X and found posts flagged as "misleading" are 2.3x more likely to be written by Reps than Dems!
The issue is Reps sharing misinformation, not fact-checker bias...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Reposted by Mohsen Mosleh, Matthieu Crozet

Thomas Renault @thomasrenault.bsky.social · Jun 17

🚨 New in PNAS 🚨

Posts by Republicans are 2.3 times more likely to be flagged as misleading than those by Democrats on X's Community Notes. A 🧵

pnas.org/doi/epub/10.... (Open Access)

Mohsen Mosleh @mmosleh.bsky.social · May 14

Happy to help. Just send me an email!

Reposted by Mohsen Mosleh

Oxford Internet Institute @oii.ox.ac.uk · Apr 24

In case you missed it, OII Prof @mmosleh.bsky.social has authored an expert comment piece for @ox.ac.uk on his recent research on how to increase engagement with factchecking.

Read it here: www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-04...

Reposted by Mohsen Mosleh

Oxford Internet Institute @oii.ox.ac.uk · Apr 22

New! In his latest opinion piece, Associate Professor, @mmosleh.bsky.social @oii.ox.ac.uk asks how we can encourage engagement with online fact-checking?
Read the full article: www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/...

OII | Expert Comment: How can we encourage engagement with online fact-checking

In his latest opinion piece, Dr Mohsen Mosleh explores the role of shared ideology and social connection as influencing factors in fact-checking and countering online misinformation.

www.oii.ox.ac.uk

Reposted by Mohsen Mosleh

Cameron Martel @cameronmartel.bsky.social · Apr 14

🚨New in @plosone.org🚨
Corrections of misinfo are often ignored. What can drive engagement?
Twitter field exp & survey followups find
-Social ties matter: users more likely to engage w corrections from accounts who followed user
-Shared partisanship had smaller effects on engagement
shorturl.at/0Ycdp

Reposted by Mohsen Mosleh

Oxford Internet Institute @oii.ox.ac.uk · Apr 1

Read the full study ‘Promoting engagement with social fact-checks online: investigating the roles of social connection and shared partnership’, authors @cameronmartel.bsky.social . @mmosleh.bsky.social , @eckles.bsky.social and @dgrand.bsky.social. Download here: bit.ly/4iR4HbO

Promoting engagement with social fact-checks online: Investigating the roles of social connection and shared partisanship

Social corrections – where users correct each other – can help rectify inaccurate beliefs. However, social corrections are often ignored. Here we ask under what conditions social corrections promote e...

bit.ly

Reposted by Mohsen Mosleh

Oxford Internet Institute @oii.ox.ac.uk · Mar 13

In the latest episode of the OII podcast, we're tackling misinformation and polarization on social media. What's the real-world impact? How are governments responding? And what about AI and deepfakes?

Listen here: podcasts.ox.ac.uk/why-social-m...

Why social media is the new frontier for misinformation, and what we can do about it: Professor Mohsen Mosleh and Cameron Martel

In the sixth episode of the OII Podcast, our experts discuss topics such as: * The real world impacts that arise when people increasingly identify with their political tribes online * What role govern...

podcasts.ox.ac.uk

Reposted by Jonas R. Kunst, Mohsen Mosleh

David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · Jan 31

🚨New WP🚨
Remember Musk+Zuck+Trump+Jordan etc crying fact-checker bias b/c Reps were flagged more than Dems? We analyzed Community Notes on Musk's X and guess what: posts flagged as "misleading" are 67% more likely to be written by Reps! The issue is Reps, not fact-checkers...
osf.io/preprints/ps...

Reposted by Mohsen Mosleh

Oxford Internet Institute @oii.ox.ac.uk · Jan 27

New paper alert! ‘Racial Minorities Face Discrimination From Across the Political Spectrum When Seeking to Form Ties on Social Media: Evidence From a Field Experiment’, authors:
Krishnan Nair, @mmosleh.bsky.social @oiioxford.bsky.social; and Maryam Kouchaki. Download the study: bit.ly/3EbQnuZ

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

bit.ly

Reposted by Mohsen Mosleh

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · Jan 7

Not sure if this is what you're getting at, but we've advocated for platforms to provide more info about the "provenance" of the content that reaches us — e.g. who first posted, who played a major role in amplifying, and who in your network brought that content to you: dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Tweet Trajectory and AMPS-based Contextual Cues can Help Users Identify Misinformation | Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

Well-intentioned users sometimes enable the spread of misinformation due to limited context about where the information originated and/or why it is spreading. Building upon recommendations based on prior research about tackling misinformation, we explore ...

dl.acm.org

Reposted by David G. Rand, Andy Purvis, Emily K. Vraga , and 10 more David G. Rand, Andy Purvis, Emily K. Vraga, John Fasullo, Pablo Brañas‐Garza, Markus Appel, Torbjørn Wisløff, Andreas Reinstaller, J. Ignacio Criado, Scott L. Althaus, Mohsen Mosleh, Nicole Graulich, Lindsay Darling

David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · Jan 7

🚨In Nature🚨
Meta is dropping fact-checking to avoid anti-conservative bias- but is there actually evidence of bias?
We this test empirically & find that conservatives
* ARE suspended more
* BUT share more misinfo
So suspension isn't necessarily evidence of bias www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Differences in misinformation sharing can lead to politically asymmetric sanctions - Nature

We find that conservatives tend to share more low-quality news through social media than liberals, and so even if technology companies enact politically neutral anti-misinformation policies, political...

www.nature.com

Reposted by Emily K. Vraga, Max Grömping, Mohsen Mosleh

Brian Stelter @brianstelter.bsky.social · Jan 7

"We're going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes, similar to X, starting in the U.S," Mark Zuckerberg announces

He asserts that "the fact-checkers have just been too politically biased, and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the U.S."

Reposted by Richard Fletcher, Mohsen Mosleh

Ross Dahlke @rossdahlke.bsky.social · Dec 20

Self-reported sharing intentions of low-quality news in surveys are predictive of actual sharing of low-quality news on X, finds @arechar.bsky.social @mmosleh.bsky.social @gordpennycook.bsky.social @dgrand.bsky.social doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Sharing intentions in survey experiments predict actual behavior on social media

Reposted by Mohsen Mosleh

David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · Dec 9

Result 3: Lower-quality news domain links get more engagement than higher-quality news domain links on ALL platforms - even left-leaning platforms like BlueSky, and those w/o ranking alg like Mastodon
@professorsinan.bsky.social & co classic finding generalizes broadly! (same using impressions on X)

Mohsen Mosleh @mmosleh.bsky.social · Dec 10

I am really excited about this line work together with @dgrand.bsky.social and @jennyallen.bsky.social where explore engagement, political lean, and quality of news posts across multiple platforms. See the pre-print as follows:

David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · Dec 9

🚨New WP🚨
We examine news sharing on 7 platforms:
1)Right-leaning platforms=lower quality news
2)Echo-platforms: Right-leaning news gets more engagement on right-leaning platforms, vice-versa for left-leaning
3)But low-quality news gets more engagement EVERYWHERE, even BlueSky!
osf.io/preprints/ps...

Reposted by Christian Pieter Hoffmann, Mohsen Mosleh

David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · Dec 9

Mohsen Mosleh @mmosleh.bsky.social · Nov 29

@williambrady.bsky.social super cool work as always! I was wondering if you controlled for other negative language features suchi as toxicity, negative language etc to make sure it’s mainly driven by outrage ?

Reposted by Mohsen Mosleh

Reposted by Kai Sassenberg, Philipp Schmid, Mohsen Mosleh

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