Brit Davidson
@britdavidson.bsky.social
Assoc Prof of Analytics; Uni of Bath, UK
My research focuses on digital trace analytics, measurement, behavioural analytics, and security. Fascinated by and passionate about tech/ML ethics and regulation
Follow me on substack.com/@brit662888
My research focuses on digital trace analytics, measurement, behavioural analytics, and security. Fascinated by and passionate about tech/ML ethics and regulation
Follow me on substack.com/@brit662888
Reposted by Brit Davidson
On Thursday at 8:30: I'll be presenting joint work with @dasalgon.bsky.social on how parties react to political violence and contribute to political polarisation. @kanol.bsky.social , Gary LaFree and I organised a panel with excellent cotributions by @britdavidson.bsky.social and Leoni Heyn
August 25, 2025 at 4:27 PM
On Thursday at 8:30: I'll be presenting joint work with @dasalgon.bsky.social on how parties react to political violence and contribute to political polarisation. @kanol.bsky.social , Gary LaFree and I organised a panel with excellent cotributions by @britdavidson.bsky.social and Leoni Heyn
Reposted by Brit Davidson
We are looking for a research assistant to help us develop tools to make dashboards easier for social scientists to create 🤩
If you are really into R and passionate about data and science communication, please apply!
If you are really into R and passionate about data and science communication, please apply!
If you know me, you know I am obsessed with building dashboards. 😅
Well, I am excited to share that @ernesto-deleon.com, Max Paulus, & I were awarded a small grant to build an #rstats package to make them accessible to other researchers.
And we’re hiring a Research Assistant to help us do that!
Well, I am excited to share that @ernesto-deleon.com, Max Paulus, & I were awarded a small grant to build an #rstats package to make them accessible to other researchers.
And we’re hiring a Research Assistant to help us do that!
April 25, 2025 at 1:46 PM
We are looking for a research assistant to help us develop tools to make dashboards easier for social scientists to create 🤩
If you are really into R and passionate about data and science communication, please apply!
If you are really into R and passionate about data and science communication, please apply!
Reposted by Brit Davidson
Value alignment (supposedly aligning LLMs w/ human values) has become powerful not only in AI safety research but also informing regulation. yet, most of it is neither about humans nor human values & every paper=“here’s an algorithm for aligning to human preferences" & a bunch of math & benchmarks
May 5, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Value alignment (supposedly aligning LLMs w/ human values) has become powerful not only in AI safety research but also informing regulation. yet, most of it is neither about humans nor human values & every paper=“here’s an algorithm for aligning to human preferences" & a bunch of math & benchmarks
Reposted by Brit Davidson
🔗I’m thrilled to share my latest article for
@uk.theconversation.com! In it, I explore how memes have become powerful vehicles for spreading dangerous ideas—including conspiracy theories—and what we should all consider before sharing one.
@uk.theconversation.com! In it, I explore how memes have become powerful vehicles for spreading dangerous ideas—including conspiracy theories—and what we should all consider before sharing one.
How memes spread conspiracy theories – and what to consider before sharing one
Harmful stereotypes, misinformation and conspiracy theories have all found their way into meme format.
theconversation.com
April 1, 2025 at 4:02 PM
🔗I’m thrilled to share my latest article for
@uk.theconversation.com! In it, I explore how memes have become powerful vehicles for spreading dangerous ideas—including conspiracy theories—and what we should all consider before sharing one.
@uk.theconversation.com! In it, I explore how memes have become powerful vehicles for spreading dangerous ideas—including conspiracy theories—and what we should all consider before sharing one.
Reposted by Brit Davidson
A new study from @emilygodwin.bsky.social and @britdavidson.bsky.social shows the sinister side to memes, revealing their role in strengthening online communities of conspiracy theorists and helping to spread harmful beliefs
www.bath.ac.uk/announcement...
www.bath.ac.uk/announcement...
January 27, 2025 at 4:40 PM
A new study from @emilygodwin.bsky.social and @britdavidson.bsky.social shows the sinister side to memes, revealing their role in strengthening online communities of conspiracy theorists and helping to spread harmful beliefs
www.bath.ac.uk/announcement...
www.bath.ac.uk/announcement...
Reposted by Brit Davidson
I am excited to share my latest research paper published in Social Media + Society, titled 'Internet Memes as Stabilizers of Conspiracy Culture: A Cognitive Anthropological Analysis' and co-authored with @britdavidson.bsky.social, Tim Hill, and Adam Joinson.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
journals.sagepub.com
January 27, 2025 at 9:40 AM
I am excited to share my latest research paper published in Social Media + Society, titled 'Internet Memes as Stabilizers of Conspiracy Culture: A Cognitive Anthropological Analysis' and co-authored with @britdavidson.bsky.social, Tim Hill, and Adam Joinson.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Reposted by Brit Davidson
Reposted by Brit Davidson
So excited to see my first first-author paper out in print!
Rage against the machine: exploring violence and emotion in conspiracy narratives on Parler
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
special thank you to my supervisors @britdavidson.bsky.social, Lukasz Piwek and Jonathan Roscoe
Rage against the machine: exploring violence and emotion in conspiracy narratives on Parler
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
special thank you to my supervisors @britdavidson.bsky.social, Lukasz Piwek and Jonathan Roscoe
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
journals.sagepub.com
December 6, 2024 at 2:30 PM
So excited to see my first first-author paper out in print!
Rage against the machine: exploring violence and emotion in conspiracy narratives on Parler
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
special thank you to my supervisors @britdavidson.bsky.social, Lukasz Piwek and Jonathan Roscoe
Rage against the machine: exploring violence and emotion in conspiracy narratives on Parler
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
special thank you to my supervisors @britdavidson.bsky.social, Lukasz Piwek and Jonathan Roscoe
Proud supervisor moment 👏 my fab PhD student Johnny has finished his first paper, looking at smart tech, privacy, and security. Specifically looking at smart doorbells in neighbourhoods and how individual choices impact those around us. 🔐
📖📚Have a read, link to the preprint is here: osf.io/g9dpt
📖📚Have a read, link to the preprint is here: osf.io/g9dpt
x.com
x.com
November 28, 2024 at 2:08 PM
Proud supervisor moment 👏 my fab PhD student Johnny has finished his first paper, looking at smart tech, privacy, and security. Specifically looking at smart doorbells in neighbourhoods and how individual choices impact those around us. 🔐
📖📚Have a read, link to the preprint is here: osf.io/g9dpt
📖📚Have a read, link to the preprint is here: osf.io/g9dpt
Reposted by Brit Davidson
we badly need healthy public awareness around AI (it’s harms, failures, downstream impacts… not the current hype AI companies push through and the media parrots with 0 critical scrutiny) as much as we need better, enforceable regulation
@abeba.bsky.social Over the past few weeks, users on X have been submitting X-rays, MRIs, CT scans and other medical images to Grok, the platform’s artificial intelligence chatbot, asking for diagnoses. The reason: Elon Musk, X’s owner, suggested it. 😮
Elon Musk Asked People to Upload Their Health Data. X Users Obliged. (Gift Article)
Privacy experts cringed when people started feeding their medical images to the A.I. tool Grok.
www.nytimes.com
November 27, 2024 at 5:53 PM
we badly need healthy public awareness around AI (it’s harms, failures, downstream impacts… not the current hype AI companies push through and the media parrots with 0 critical scrutiny) as much as we need better, enforceable regulation
Reposted by Brit Davidson
one of the world leading research institutes that prides itself in responsible & public benefiting AI: we want you to write a blog post
me: sure, I can write about my expertise; holding those that are developing/deploying harmful AI accountable
them: let's not be overly critical of powerful actors
me: sure, I can write about my expertise; holding those that are developing/deploying harmful AI accountable
them: let's not be overly critical of powerful actors
November 20, 2024 at 3:06 AM
one of the world leading research institutes that prides itself in responsible & public benefiting AI: we want you to write a blog post
me: sure, I can write about my expertise; holding those that are developing/deploying harmful AI accountable
them: let's not be overly critical of powerful actors
me: sure, I can write about my expertise; holding those that are developing/deploying harmful AI accountable
them: let's not be overly critical of powerful actors
Reposted by Brit Davidson
New in NHB: We systematically replicated 26 of 41 PNAS social science studies that used MTurk. The approach provides a proof-of-concept for using decision markets to select findings to replicate.
Replication effect sizes were 45% of original effect sizes.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Replication effect sizes were 45% of original effect sizes.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Examining the replicability of online experiments selected by a decision market - Nature Human Behaviour
This study finds that decision markets can be a useful tool for selecting studies for replication. For a sample of 26 online experiments published in PNAS selected by a decision market, the authors fi...
www.nature.com
November 19, 2024 at 11:59 AM
New in NHB: We systematically replicated 26 of 41 PNAS social science studies that used MTurk. The approach provides a proof-of-concept for using decision markets to select findings to replicate.
Replication effect sizes were 45% of original effect sizes.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Replication effect sizes were 45% of original effect sizes.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Brit Davidson
Hearing from former colleagues about this and it seems an utter management fiasco as ever at Edinburgh.
School Heads weren't warned the redundancy email was going out.
At the all-staff meeting the next day Senior Management then refused to provide any specifics...
www.bbc.com/news/article...
School Heads weren't warned the redundancy email was going out.
At the all-staff meeting the next day Senior Management then refused to provide any specifics...
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Edinburgh University warns staff to expect job cuts
The institution blamed "unsustainable" funding and a fall in student numbers for the decision.
www.bbc.com
November 19, 2024 at 12:08 PM
Hearing from former colleagues about this and it seems an utter management fiasco as ever at Edinburgh.
School Heads weren't warned the redundancy email was going out.
At the all-staff meeting the next day Senior Management then refused to provide any specifics...
www.bbc.com/news/article...
School Heads weren't warned the redundancy email was going out.
At the all-staff meeting the next day Senior Management then refused to provide any specifics...
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Reposted by Brit Davidson
A rent paper has been portrayed in the news as proof that Twitter/X new #recsys favors republicans.
In our latest work, collecting millions of datapoints via 120 sock puppets, we should the reality is much more complex: you would be surprised by our findings:
arxiv.org/abs/2411.01852
thread 1/n
In our latest work, collecting millions of datapoints via 120 sock puppets, we should the reality is much more complex: you would be surprised by our findings:
arxiv.org/abs/2411.01852
thread 1/n
Auditing Political Exposure Bias: Algorithmic Amplification on Twitter/X Approaching the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election
Approximately 50% of tweets in X's user timelines are personalized recommendations from accounts they do not follow. This raises a critical question: what political content are users exposed to beyond...
arxiv.org
November 18, 2024 at 5:57 AM
A rent paper has been portrayed in the news as proof that Twitter/X new #recsys favors republicans.
In our latest work, collecting millions of datapoints via 120 sock puppets, we should the reality is much more complex: you would be surprised by our findings:
arxiv.org/abs/2411.01852
thread 1/n
In our latest work, collecting millions of datapoints via 120 sock puppets, we should the reality is much more complex: you would be surprised by our findings:
arxiv.org/abs/2411.01852
thread 1/n
Reposted by Brit Davidson
Now is the time to archive the gov data and webpages that you depend on for your research. They may not be there in the future. #AcademicSky
#AcademicSky #LawSky folks: if there are any government pages / data you care about, use web.archive.org/save to make sure they are archived / up to date. If you have a long list to do manually, DM me and I'll help you do it automatically.
You can also use perma.cc if you have an account.
You can also use perma.cc if you have an account.
Wayback MachineHamburger iconInternet Archive logoWeb iconTexts iconVideo iconAudio iconSoftware iconImages iconDonate iconEllipses iconDonate iconUser iconUpload iconSearch iconSearch iconSearch icon...
web.archive.org
November 18, 2024 at 12:24 AM
Now is the time to archive the gov data and webpages that you depend on for your research. They may not be there in the future. #AcademicSky
Reposted by Brit Davidson
If you’re interested/worried about the effects of screens, phones and social media, my book, Unlocked, is still just 99p on Kindle at the moment: www.amazon.co.uk/Unlocked-Sci...
Unlocked: The Real Science of Screen Time (and how to spend it better) eBook : Etchells, Pete: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
Unlocked: The Real Science of Screen Time (and how to spend it better) eBook : Etchells, Pete: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
www.amazon.co.uk
November 16, 2024 at 1:23 PM
If you’re interested/worried about the effects of screens, phones and social media, my book, Unlocked, is still just 99p on Kindle at the moment: www.amazon.co.uk/Unlocked-Sci...
Reposted by Brit Davidson
Horrifying statistics obtained by UCU show 61% of undergraduate tutorials at Oxford colleges done by junior academics on fixed-term contracts or in hourly-paid roles. Colleges pay many below minimum wage in the UK, after accounting for preparation and marking.
www.theguardian.com/education/20...
www.theguardian.com/education/20...
Oxford relying on ‘Deliveroo-style’ contracts with most tutorials not taught by full-time staff
Leading university accused of relying on young academics employed on gig-economy terms
www.theguardian.com
November 16, 2024 at 11:33 PM
Horrifying statistics obtained by UCU show 61% of undergraduate tutorials at Oxford colleges done by junior academics on fixed-term contracts or in hourly-paid roles. Colleges pay many below minimum wage in the UK, after accounting for preparation and marking.
www.theguardian.com/education/20...
www.theguardian.com/education/20...
Reposted by Brit Davidson
Getting the US numbers to “say” what an autocrat wants them to say is a lot harder than creating the impression that the numbers are unreliable, civil servants are untrustworthy/stupid, and methods are corrupt. Numbers don’t speak for themselves. They have interpreters, for better and for worse.
For my friends who study the census and statistics: how might the new administration try to transform statistical collection and reporting, and what might be done to stop it? Or at least...monitor it and bring it to public attention?
Disturbing prediction from @pkrugman.bsky.social: If Trump's deportations really happen, inflation will spike, then MAGA loyalists will corrupt government info to mask it.
For autocrats, he says, "among their first targets are statistical agencies."
Our exchange:
newrepublic.com/article/1883...
For autocrats, he says, "among their first targets are statistical agencies."
Our exchange:
newrepublic.com/article/1883...
November 13, 2024 at 2:28 PM
Getting the US numbers to “say” what an autocrat wants them to say is a lot harder than creating the impression that the numbers are unreliable, civil servants are untrustworthy/stupid, and methods are corrupt. Numbers don’t speak for themselves. They have interpreters, for better and for worse.
Reposted by Brit Davidson
🚨New preprint 🚨
**A computational model of reward learning and habits on social media**
🧵
We develop a computational reward learning model of real-world social media data, which infers the separate goal-directed and habitual cognitive processes driving posting...
**A computational model of reward learning and habits on social media**
🧵
We develop a computational reward learning model of real-world social media data, which infers the separate goal-directed and habitual cognitive processes driving posting...
November 13, 2024 at 11:02 AM
🚨New preprint 🚨
**A computational model of reward learning and habits on social media**
🧵
We develop a computational reward learning model of real-world social media data, which infers the separate goal-directed and habitual cognitive processes driving posting...
**A computational model of reward learning and habits on social media**
🧵
We develop a computational reward learning model of real-world social media data, which infers the separate goal-directed and habitual cognitive processes driving posting...
Reposted by Brit Davidson
“When kids hear 'you’re addicted, you're addicted, you're addicted,' they don’t necessarily feel cared for - they feel criticised. They feel as if they’re being punished, and the devices are taken away”
www.wbur.org/radioboston/...
www.wbur.org/radioboston/...
A Boston psychiatrist weighs in on the Mass. TikTok lawsuit and digital wellness
The co-founder of Boston Children's Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders, Dr. Michael Tsappis joins Radio Boston to talk about digital wellness.
www.wbur.org
November 12, 2024 at 8:12 AM
“When kids hear 'you’re addicted, you're addicted, you're addicted,' they don’t necessarily feel cared for - they feel criticised. They feel as if they’re being punished, and the devices are taken away”
www.wbur.org/radioboston/...
www.wbur.org/radioboston/...
Reposted by Brit Davidson
Network Science Institute starter pack in BlueSky! A list of members and alumni (to be updated)
go.bsky.app/N3PQTdw
go.bsky.app/N3PQTdw
November 11, 2024 at 12:27 AM
Network Science Institute starter pack in BlueSky! A list of members and alumni (to be updated)
go.bsky.app/N3PQTdw
go.bsky.app/N3PQTdw
Reposted by Brit Davidson
Judgment and Decision Making JDM by @dggoldst.bsky.social
November 12, 2024 at 8:50 AM
Judgment and Decision Making JDM by @dggoldst.bsky.social
Reposted by Brit Davidson
Diversity Scientists in Social Psychology by @joelleforestier.bsky.social
November 12, 2024 at 6:21 AM
Diversity Scientists in Social Psychology by @joelleforestier.bsky.social
Reposted by Brit Davidson
List of psychology-related starter packs!
#Psychology #AcademicSky 🧪 🧵
Cross-Cultural Psychology and Quant Anthropology
by @drboothroyd.bsky.social
#Psychology #AcademicSky 🧪 🧵
Cross-Cultural Psychology and Quant Anthropology
by @drboothroyd.bsky.social
September 15, 2024 at 11:03 AM
List of psychology-related starter packs!
#Psychology #AcademicSky 🧪 🧵
Cross-Cultural Psychology and Quant Anthropology
by @drboothroyd.bsky.social
#Psychology #AcademicSky 🧪 🧵
Cross-Cultural Psychology and Quant Anthropology
by @drboothroyd.bsky.social