David Lazer
David Lazer
@davidlazer.bsky.social

computational social scientist

David Lazer is a distinguished professor of political science and computer and information science at Northeastern University, as well as the co-director of the NULab of Texts, Maps, and Networks. .. more

Political science 23%
Communication & Media Studies 18%
Wild graphic on front page of WSJ.

Reposted by David Lazer

Day Two of our Computational
Social Science Meets
Qualitative Research workshop has begun and we’re in the iconic Shaw Library 📚⚡️

@lsedatascience.bsky.social
"Federal policy has jumped the gun: We don’t yet know if AI will transform the economy or even be profitable. Yet Washington is insulating the industry from all sorts of risk. If a bubble does pop, we’ll all be left holding the bag." [Gift Link] www.wsj.com/opinion/you-...
The Trump administration’s systematic targeting of US knowledge infrastructure spans the entire production chain, from soup to nuts. Without reliable statistics, research funding, or accessible data, information asymmetries will surely increase, writes Amelia Acker.
Week After Week, The US is Dismantling Knowledge Infrastructure | TechPolicy.Press
Without reliable statistics, research funding, or accessible data, information asymmetries will surely increase, writes Amelia Acker.
www.techpolicy.press
Propaganda does not rely entirely on unassailable evidence and impeccable logic to discipline its targets. Neither can the response, writes Calum Matheson, an associate professor and chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Pittsburgh.
Scholars Must Recognize the Role of Affect and Emotion in Disinformation | TechPolicy.Press
The tactics of digital emotional manipulation are many and varied, but many of the most prominent exploit frustration and rage, writes Calum Matheson.
www.techpolicy.press

A few quick thoughts from CHIP50 surveys during the NJ and VA gubernatorial elections. TLDR, Republicans lost A LOT of support among less affluent 2024 Trump voters, via demobilization and conversion.

www.chip50.org/blog/big-shi...
Big shifts among less affluent Trump voters away from Republicans in 2025 gubernatorial elections
www.chip50.org
Forthcoming in the AER: "“Potential” and the Gender Promotion Gap" by Alan Benson, Danielle Li, and Kelly Shue. www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...
“Potential” and the Gender Promotion Gap
(Forthcoming Article) - We show that subjective assessments of employee “potential” contribute to gender gaps in promotion and pay. Using data on 29,809 management-track employees from a large retail ...
www.aeaweb.org

Reposted by David Lazer

Last week’s elections show how central social media has become to campaigns with politicians on nearly every platform. But as Josephine Lukito and Kaitlyn Dowling explain, we know less and less about them, because access to this data is shrinking.
There is More Online Election Discourse than Ever, But Researchers See Less | TechPolicy.Press
Josephine Lukito and Kaitlyn Dowling explore why public social media data is vital for transparent elections and accountability in the digital campaign era.
www.techpolicy.press
LAST CALL! #Sociology Professorships in Copenhagen, Denmark!

We're hiring 2+ open-rank profs (Asst/Assoc/Full). Any area.

Deadline: this Saturday, Nov 15!

Join a leading European sociology department. Please repost!

jobportal.ku.dk/videnskabeli...
Call for two or more open-rank academic positions in Sociology
jobportal.ku.dk
🧵 Important work from @epic.org examining a critical governance gap after DOGE. The 2007 Data Mining Reporting Act was meant to ensure oversight of surveillance tech. But agencies treat it as optional, undermining the institutional checks needed to constrain govt power. epic.org/data-mining-...
Closing the Data Mines: Repairing Oversight, Preserving Rights
epic.org
8 high level positions at NIH posted including 6 institute director positions (NIMH, NIGMS, NICHD, NIDCR, NHGRI, NLM).

Only open for 2 weeks (applications due November 21).

Application materials include a) CV b) vision statement c) a photocopy of doctoral degree.

hr.nih.gov/careers/open...
hr.nih.gov

Reposted by David Lazer

Something deeply fucked up when you can blindly break basic state functions and condemn millions to death and then people make you the richest man in the world instead of a pariah

Reposted by David Lazer

If you only read one thing today - a Q&A with Patricia Kingori, a remarkable scholar who uncovered a remarkable story about a huge ‘fake essay industry’.

🧪 #academicSky

@nature.com @ox.ac.uk

www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Shadow scholars: inside Kenya’s multibillion-dollar fake-essay industry
Sociologist Patricia Kingori is helping to expose contract cheating by scholars in high-income countries.
www.nature.com
Computation+Journalism 2025 is a month away (December 11-12); we're finishing the last details of the symposium: cplusj2025.com Here's the full agenda: cplusj2025.com/agenda/ Join us! You can register here ($150 for professionals, $30 for students): events.miami.edu/event/cplusj...

Reposted by David Lazer

Should local officials in a democracy be allowed to sign NDAs?
How NDAs keep AI data center details hidden from Americans:

Big Tech companies use secrecy agreements with local governments to keep communities from knowing who is building in their backyards.

www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne...
How Big Tech uses NDAs to hide AI data center details from Americans
Big Tech companies use secrecy agreements with local governments to keep communities from knowing who is building in their backyards.
www.nbcnews.com
NJ's bluest counties saw biggest turnout increases, propelling landslide

Three densest counties saw largest jumps from '21:
Hudson (Jersey City), Essex (Newark), Union
>30% increase in total vote
>30-pt Democratic margin

High-profile local races helped, e.g., Jersey City mayoral w/ former gov

1/2
Ok, just wow. If the content of this article is right, this is depressing. We're slowly reaching the point where ~100% of what I was taught in Social Psych was either innocently wrong or plainly frauded

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
Debunking “When Prophecy Fails”
In 1954, Dorothy Martin predicted an apocalyptic flood and promised her followers rescue by flying saucers. When neither arrived, she recanted, her group dissolved, and efforts to proselytize ceased....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
A new paper analyzes the “production-consumption gap” on social media, where a small subset of users produce most of the content, and considers its implications for the study of phenomena such as political polarization, and for the design of policy interventions. Prithvi Iyer considers the results:
What a New Study Reveals About the Production-Consumption Gap on Social Media | TechPolicy.Press
Prithvi Iyer considers new research on how online content reveals the tip of the iceberg, leading to incorrect inferences about online public opinion.
www.techpolicy.press

Reposted by David Lazer

Trump approval at low point with:
'24 non-voters (33%)
Independents (30%)
People of color (26%)

Economic outlook remains negative, with few expecting prices to decrease any time soon, and many saying Trump's policies making them worse off

More from latest poll: www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-new...

2/2
www.cbsnews.com
These extreme maps may be legal next year.

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/u...
Future of Gerrymandering? Here’s How Weird Things Could Look.
www.nytimes.com
Did you know that we allow child marriage in the US? We do, in 34 states, and four or five children are being married every day on average. I once met a Floridian married at 11 to her rapist. And California has no minimum age at all for marriage: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/o...
Opinion | Why Do We Allow Child Marriage in America?
www.nytimes.com
Starting in 3 minutes - join us! ucla.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Reposted by David Lazer

Finally, we move beyond social media research and discuss potential consequences of the production-consumption gap, which results in a remarkable visibility gap, for public opinion more broadly.

Reposted by David Lazer

We then discuss methodological challenges this production-consumption gap poses for us, social media researchers, and derive implications for sampling, study design and inference.

Reposted by David Lazer

One phenomenon that is remarkably consistent across platforms, time and contexts: most people lurk, read along, and never really post while a small minority is very active, and very visible — a.k.a. the production-consumption gap.
We have a new preprint: osf.io/preprints/so...

What have we learned about social media - the constantly moving target of empirical research - over the past decade?
🚨It's finally here!🚨
AAPOR's Taskforce on 2024 Pre-Election Polling report is out!

Full report: /https://aapor.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AAPOR-Task-Force-on-2024-Pre-Election-Polling_Report.pdf

Executive summary: aapor.org/wp-content/u...
aapor.org

Solutions!