Laura Bronner
@laurabronner.bsky.social
Scientific director, Public Discourse Foundation || Senior applied scientist, IPL/ETH Zürich || Data, media, experiments || Formerly FiveThirtyEight quant editor.
www.laurabronner.com
www.laurabronner.com
Pinned
Laura Bronner
@laurabronner.bsky.social
· Nov 21
A thread about being wrong:
5 years ago, we wrote a paper about how how newly enfranchised 16-year-olds vote in Austria. But we were wrong.
This year, @elisabethgraf.bsky.social, @schnizzl.bsky.social, Sylvia Kritzinger and I are setting the record straight: authors.elsevier.com/c/1juT5xRaZk...
5 years ago, we wrote a paper about how how newly enfranchised 16-year-olds vote in Austria. But we were wrong.
This year, @elisabethgraf.bsky.social, @schnizzl.bsky.social, Sylvia Kritzinger and I are setting the record straight: authors.elsevier.com/c/1juT5xRaZk...
Reposted by Laura Bronner
Join us on Thursday, 18 Sept, at 14:30 CET for the International Roundtable on Computational Social Science with Laura Bronner @laurabronner.bsky.social 🔹Tackling harmful online comments on news platforms: three field experiments 🔹More info: liu.se/en/article/s...
Seminars and lectures at IAS
Welcome to IAS public lectures and seminars.
liu.se
September 15, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Join us on Thursday, 18 Sept, at 14:30 CET for the International Roundtable on Computational Social Science with Laura Bronner @laurabronner.bsky.social 🔹Tackling harmful online comments on news platforms: three field experiments 🔹More info: liu.se/en/article/s...
Reposted by Laura Bronner
📢 In a new online field experiment, we find that #counterspeech with perspective-based messages can reduce online hate speech, and its 🌟amplification🌟
with a large research team across #ETHZurich @ipz.bsky.social @uclspp.bsky.social and beyond
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
with a large research team across #ETHZurich @ipz.bsky.social @uclspp.bsky.social and beyond
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Counterspeech encouraging users to adopt the perspective of minority groups reduces hate speech and its amplification on social media - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Counterspeech encouraging users to adopt the perspective of minority groups reduces hate speech and its amplification on social media
www.nature.com
July 2, 2025 at 6:53 PM
📢 In a new online field experiment, we find that #counterspeech with perspective-based messages can reduce online hate speech, and its 🌟amplification🌟
with a large research team across #ETHZurich @ipz.bsky.social @uclspp.bsky.social and beyond
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
with a large research team across #ETHZurich @ipz.bsky.social @uclspp.bsky.social and beyond
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Laura Bronner
Wow, thank you for helping to keep this alive. I get so many notes from people using this in their coursework.
I’ve long used FiveThirtyEight’s interactive “Hack Your Way To Scientific Glory” to illustrate the idea of p-hacking when I teach statistics. But ABC/Disney killed the site earlier this month :(
So I made my own with #rstats and Observable and #QuartoPub ! stats.andrewheiss.com/hack-your-way/
So I made my own with #rstats and Observable and #QuartoPub ! stats.andrewheiss.com/hack-your-way/
March 21, 2025 at 1:57 AM
Wow, thank you for helping to keep this alive. I get so many notes from people using this in their coursework.
The end of 538 is a huge shame - both for the incredible people who worked there, and for political and data journalism as a whole.
I was lucky enough to work beside them for a few years and want to say a bit about what I think was so valuable that I hope doesn't vanish from the media landscape: 🧵
I was lucky enough to work beside them for a few years and want to say a bit about what I think was so valuable that I hope doesn't vanish from the media landscape: 🧵
Incredibly sad to report that ABC News is indeed eliminating 538.
I count myself incredibly lucky to have worked with such incredibly smart, kind people for 7 years. Thank you all for coming along for the ride.
I count myself incredibly lucky to have worked with such incredibly smart, kind people for 7 years. Thank you all for coming along for the ride.
March 6, 2025 at 5:19 PM
The end of 538 is a huge shame - both for the incredible people who worked there, and for political and data journalism as a whole.
I was lucky enough to work beside them for a few years and want to say a bit about what I think was so valuable that I hope doesn't vanish from the media landscape: 🧵
I was lucky enough to work beside them for a few years and want to say a bit about what I think was so valuable that I hope doesn't vanish from the media landscape: 🧵
Reposted by Laura Bronner
Out now open access at
@ajpseditor.bsky.social. 194 potential exclusion-restriction violations for studies using weather as an instrumental variable onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
@ajpseditor.bsky.social. 194 potential exclusion-restriction violations for studies using weather as an instrumental variable onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
November 14, 2024 at 9:53 PM
Out now open access at
@ajpseditor.bsky.social. 194 potential exclusion-restriction violations for studies using weather as an instrumental variable onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
@ajpseditor.bsky.social. 194 potential exclusion-restriction violations for studies using weather as an instrumental variable onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Laura Bronner
Interested in how people talk to each other online? Care about causal inference and/or NLP? Want to design and implement field experiments?
Come do a PhD with Dominik Hangartner, me, and a bunch of awesome people at IPL in Zurich:
jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOP...
Come do a PhD with Dominik Hangartner, me, and a bunch of awesome people at IPL in Zurich:
jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOP...
February 7, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Interested in how people talk to each other online? Care about causal inference and/or NLP? Want to design and implement field experiments?
Come do a PhD with Dominik Hangartner, me, and a bunch of awesome people at IPL in Zurich:
jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOP...
Come do a PhD with Dominik Hangartner, me, and a bunch of awesome people at IPL in Zurich:
jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOP...
Interested in how people talk to each other online? Care about causal inference and/or NLP? Want to design and implement field experiments?
Come do a PhD with Dominik Hangartner, me, and a bunch of awesome people at IPL in Zurich:
jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOP...
Come do a PhD with Dominik Hangartner, me, and a bunch of awesome people at IPL in Zurich:
jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOP...
February 7, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Interested in how people talk to each other online? Care about causal inference and/or NLP? Want to design and implement field experiments?
Come do a PhD with Dominik Hangartner, me, and a bunch of awesome people at IPL in Zurich:
jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOP...
Come do a PhD with Dominik Hangartner, me, and a bunch of awesome people at IPL in Zurich:
jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOP...
Reposted by Laura Bronner
The US2020 project was not independent (and that's good) open.substack.com/pub/drewdimm...
What was US2020?
The US 2020 Facebook and Instagram Election Project (US2020) was a sprawling project with dozens of people involved at various levels.
open.substack.com
January 29, 2025 at 2:28 PM
The US2020 project was not independent (and that's good) open.substack.com/pub/drewdimm...
I really like this development. But it's interesting how much effort is expended on post-publication review, rather than proper pre-publication code review like I used to do at 538. Maybe checking data munging & analysis should be an integral part of peer review, done by paid journal employees -
APSR will start inviting replications for a random subset of accepted papers. I really like this as well as the constructive tone around it 👏 (from the latest Notes from the Editors)
December 5, 2024 at 9:59 PM
I really like this development. But it's interesting how much effort is expended on post-publication review, rather than proper pre-publication code review like I used to do at 538. Maybe checking data munging & analysis should be an integral part of peer review, done by paid journal employees -
Reposted by Laura Bronner
I've often wondered why we don't invite original authors on replications, especially ones that demonstrate issues with the original papers. It would increase code-sharing, transparency, and lessen the shame of retraction, which would be good for science.
But then instead of just writing about how wrong we were (which, to be clear, we absolutely were), Elisabeth, Julia and Sylvia invited us to collaborate - to work together to figure out what we can *actually* learn about voting at 16 in Austria, with better code and much more data.
December 2, 2024 at 6:11 PM
I've often wondered why we don't invite original authors on replications, especially ones that demonstrate issues with the original papers. It would increase code-sharing, transparency, and lessen the shame of retraction, which would be good for science.
Reposted by Laura Bronner
New paper in @apsrjournal.bsky.social with @andreasbeerli.bsky.social, Dominik Hangartner, and Dalston Ward about #immigration and voting for the #FarRight in #Switzerland
November 26, 2024 at 4:11 PM
New paper in @apsrjournal.bsky.social with @andreasbeerli.bsky.social, Dominik Hangartner, and Dalston Ward about #immigration and voting for the #FarRight in #Switzerland
Reposted by Laura Bronner
There but for the grace of god
3) Check your fucking code.
November 24, 2024 at 4:18 PM
There but for the grace of god
Really interesting -- and I especially appreciate how easy to understand the charts are:
polls missed big in 2016, but pollsters spent the past 8 years adapting to those misses and these adjustments worked pretty well in 2024. my new @goodauth.bsky.social piece with Caroline Soler goodauthority.org/news/pollste...
November 26, 2024 at 8:21 PM
Really interesting -- and I especially appreciate how easy to understand the charts are:
Reposted by Laura Bronner
Professional software developers routinely release code that contains bugs. Expecting researchers to always do better than this is unrealistic and leads to defensive behavior
November 24, 2024 at 3:07 PM
Professional software developers routinely release code that contains bugs. Expecting researchers to always do better than this is unrealistic and leads to defensive behavior
Reposted by Laura Bronner
⬇️❗This is so crucial, we can all learn a lot from this exmple. I am glad I had @laurabronner.bsky.social reviewing my analysis code for this paper several times, and I think that's a huge asset of collaborative research.
3) Check your fucking code.
November 21, 2024 at 9:46 PM
⬇️❗This is so crucial, we can all learn a lot from this exmple. I am glad I had @laurabronner.bsky.social reviewing my analysis code for this paper several times, and I think that's a huge asset of collaborative research.
Reposted by Laura Bronner
We created a new dashboard for @zeit.de showing the current state of election polls in Germany ahead of the upcoming election in February. Also shows probabilities for govt. coalitions based on the polls. The full article version also features my favorite sparklines. www.zeit.de/politik/deut...
November 21, 2024 at 2:08 PM
We created a new dashboard for @zeit.de showing the current state of election polls in Germany ahead of the upcoming election in February. Also shows probabilities for govt. coalitions based on the polls. The full article version also features my favorite sparklines. www.zeit.de/politik/deut...
A thread about being wrong:
5 years ago, we wrote a paper about how how newly enfranchised 16-year-olds vote in Austria. But we were wrong.
This year, @elisabethgraf.bsky.social, @schnizzl.bsky.social, Sylvia Kritzinger and I are setting the record straight: authors.elsevier.com/c/1juT5xRaZk...
5 years ago, we wrote a paper about how how newly enfranchised 16-year-olds vote in Austria. But we were wrong.
This year, @elisabethgraf.bsky.social, @schnizzl.bsky.social, Sylvia Kritzinger and I are setting the record straight: authors.elsevier.com/c/1juT5xRaZk...
November 21, 2024 at 6:01 PM
A thread about being wrong:
5 years ago, we wrote a paper about how how newly enfranchised 16-year-olds vote in Austria. But we were wrong.
This year, @elisabethgraf.bsky.social, @schnizzl.bsky.social, Sylvia Kritzinger and I are setting the record straight: authors.elsevier.com/c/1juT5xRaZk...
5 years ago, we wrote a paper about how how newly enfranchised 16-year-olds vote in Austria. But we were wrong.
This year, @elisabethgraf.bsky.social, @schnizzl.bsky.social, Sylvia Kritzinger and I are setting the record straight: authors.elsevier.com/c/1juT5xRaZk...
Reposted by Laura Bronner
Offizieller Wahlkampfauftakt auf @zeit.de: Wir haben unseren Wahltrend neu gestartet. Bis 23. Februar zeigen wir nun tagesaktuell, wo die Parteien in den Umfragen stehen und welche Koalitionen laut unserer Simulation der künftigen Sitzverteilung möglich wären.
zeit.de/wahltrend
zeit.de/wahltrend
November 21, 2024 at 2:14 PM
Offizieller Wahlkampfauftakt auf @zeit.de: Wir haben unseren Wahltrend neu gestartet. Bis 23. Februar zeigen wir nun tagesaktuell, wo die Parteien in den Umfragen stehen und welche Koalitionen laut unserer Simulation der künftigen Sitzverteilung möglich wären.
zeit.de/wahltrend
zeit.de/wahltrend
This election is uncertain not just because the polls are close, but also because a decisive victory for either candidate is within a normal-sized polling error - and since the polls seem to be herding, a polling error may be likelier than usual.
Great piece by @lennybronner.com :
Great piece by @lennybronner.com :
November 3, 2024 at 9:34 PM
This election is uncertain not just because the polls are close, but also because a decisive victory for either candidate is within a normal-sized polling error - and since the polls seem to be herding, a polling error may be likelier than usual.
Great piece by @lennybronner.com :
Great piece by @lennybronner.com :
😍 the use of baselines when reporting numbers
March 5, 2024 at 5:07 PM
😍 the use of baselines when reporting numbers
Underrated achievement: first load of laundry in a new apartment
January 26, 2024 at 12:19 PM
Underrated achievement: first load of laundry in a new apartment
One thing I'll miss about working from home with @ddimmery.com is hearing a giggle and knowing I will get a tweet in the next few seconds
January 15, 2024 at 1:40 PM
One thing I'll miss about working from home with @ddimmery.com is hearing a giggle and knowing I will get a tweet in the next few seconds
sometimes brits are european
December 30, 2023 at 10:19 PM
sometimes brits are european
Reposted by Laura Bronner
Wrote some thoughts on microblogging (derogatory)
Stop looking for the next Twitter
BlueSky doesn't solve any of Twitter's real problems, nor will any other microblog
open.substack.com
October 3, 2023 at 12:54 PM
Wrote some thoughts on microblogging (derogatory)