Jenny Allen
@jennyallen.bsky.social
Assistant Professor of Technology, Operations, and Statistics @ NYU Stern
Interested in Computational Social Science, Digital Persuasion, and Wisdom of Crowds
Interested in Computational Social Science, Digital Persuasion, and Wisdom of Crowds
Reposted by Jenny Allen
🚨Out in PNAS🚨
Examining news 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)Low-quality news gets more engagement EVERYWHERE - even BlueSky!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Examining news 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)Low-quality news gets more engagement EVERYWHERE - even BlueSky!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
November 14, 2025 at 2:35 PM
🚨Out in PNAS🚨
Examining news 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)Low-quality news gets more engagement EVERYWHERE - even BlueSky!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Examining news 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)Low-quality news gets more engagement EVERYWHERE - even BlueSky!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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!
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!
November 5, 2025 at 5:19 PM
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!
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 Jenny Allen
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...
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
November 3, 2025 at 2:30 PM
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...
techandsciencepost.com/news/other-s...
Reposted by Jenny Allen
"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"
"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
November 5, 2025 at 3:47 PM
"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"
"pattern we find seems to be driven more by an underperformance of particularly popular high-quality outlets"
Reposted by Jenny Allen
📣 Yale workshop, Oct 16-17! 📣 How could/should content ranking work? What's new in content moderation? How can platforms promote civility? Hosted by Yale's Institute for Foundations of Data Science (FDS). Great speakers! Submit posters by 9/22! Spread the word! yalefds.swoogo.com/socialalgori...
New Directions in Social Algorithms Research on October 16-17, 2025 at Yale University
As social media algorithms increasingly mediate social experiences, there has been a rapid increase in research on the effects of how these algorithms are configured, alternatives to engagement-centri...
yalefds.swoogo.com
September 12, 2025 at 12:28 PM
📣 Yale workshop, Oct 16-17! 📣 How could/should content ranking work? What's new in content moderation? How can platforms promote civility? Hosted by Yale's Institute for Foundations of Data Science (FDS). Great speakers! Submit posters by 9/22! Spread the word! yalefds.swoogo.com/socialalgori...
New in TiCS w @dgrand.bsky.social @gordpennycook.bsky.social
It’s been ~10yrs since misinfo research exploded but our paradigms are stuck in the post-2016 “fake news” model
Time for new approaches:
o True/False → Content that misleads
o Belief → Behavior
o Eval interventions in ambiguous settings
It’s been ~10yrs since misinfo research exploded but our paradigms are stuck in the post-2016 “fake news” model
Time for new approaches:
o True/False → Content that misleads
o Belief → Behavior
o Eval interventions in ambiguous settings
August 6, 2025 at 1:40 PM
New in TiCS w @dgrand.bsky.social @gordpennycook.bsky.social
It’s been ~10yrs since misinfo research exploded but our paradigms are stuck in the post-2016 “fake news” model
Time for new approaches:
o True/False → Content that misleads
o Belief → Behavior
o Eval interventions in ambiguous settings
It’s been ~10yrs since misinfo research exploded but our paradigms are stuck in the post-2016 “fake news” model
Time for new approaches:
o True/False → Content that misleads
o Belief → Behavior
o Eval interventions in ambiguous settings
Reposted by Jenny Allen
🚨 Predoc at Microsoft Research 🚨
Do you have strong front-end programming and statistics skills but need research experience before heading off to graduate school for a computational social science PhD? Apply now for this summer!
www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...
Do you have strong front-end programming and statistics skills but need research experience before heading off to graduate school for a computational social science PhD? Apply now for this summer!
www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...
Predoctoral Research Assistant (Contract) – Computational Social Science - Microsoft Research
Are you a recent college graduate wishing to gain research experience prior to pursuing a Ph.D. in fields related to computational social science (CSS)? Do you have a deep love of “playing with data”—...
www.microsoft.com
April 16, 2025 at 2:13 PM
🚨 Predoc at Microsoft Research 🚨
Do you have strong front-end programming and statistics skills but need research experience before heading off to graduate school for a computational social science PhD? Apply now for this summer!
www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...
Do you have strong front-end programming and statistics skills but need research experience before heading off to graduate school for a computational social science PhD? Apply now for this summer!
www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...
Reposted by Jenny Allen
Thrilled to be hosting the 3rd MEEW (Media Effects Empirical Workshop) at Columbia again. Hope to see some of you there! RSVP link is available at: sites.google.com/view/columbi...
April 3, 2025 at 6:28 PM
Thrilled to be hosting the 3rd MEEW (Media Effects Empirical Workshop) at Columbia again. Hope to see some of you there! RSVP link is available at: sites.google.com/view/columbi...
Reposted by Jenny Allen
New WP!
The illusory truth effect (repetition -> belief) is core to psych of beliefs, & thought to be a deep bias impacting misinfo, persuasion & advertising
Why would cognition include such a flaw? We argue it is a rational adaptation to high-quality info environments 🧵1/
The illusory truth effect (repetition -> belief) is core to psych of beliefs, & thought to be a deep bias impacting misinfo, persuasion & advertising
Why would cognition include such a flaw? We argue it is a rational adaptation to high-quality info environments 🧵1/
February 1, 2025 at 10:50 PM
New WP!
The illusory truth effect (repetition -> belief) is core to psych of beliefs, & thought to be a deep bias impacting misinfo, persuasion & advertising
Why would cognition include such a flaw? We argue it is a rational adaptation to high-quality info environments 🧵1/
The illusory truth effect (repetition -> belief) is core to psych of beliefs, & thought to be a deep bias impacting misinfo, persuasion & advertising
Why would cognition include such a flaw? We argue it is a rational adaptation to high-quality info environments 🧵1/
Reposted by Jenny Allen
🚨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...
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...
December 9, 2024 at 7:48 PM
🚨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...
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...