Farid
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odinias.bsky.social
Farid
@odinias.bsky.social
30 followers 110 following 1 posts
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socialmedialab.ca
Here’s to maple syrup, universal healthcare, and not being the 51st state, no matter what Trump dreams up.
Strong, free, and proudly Canadian. Cheers! 🍁
a man wearing a red canada elbows up shirt
ALT: a man wearing a red canada elbows up shirt
media.tenor.com
July 1, 2025 at 12:14 PM
Reposted by Farid
socialmedialab.ca
If the cosmos keeps score, this will be Trump's legacy: an additional fourteen million people dead by 2030, a legacy measured in loss, not leadership. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
Evaluating the impact of two decades of USAID interventions and projecting the effects of defunding on mortality up to 2030: a retrospective impact evaluation and forecasting analysis
USAID funding has significantly contributed to the reduction in adult and child mortality across low-income and middle-income countries over the past two decades. Our estimates show that, unless the a...
www.thelancet.com
July 1, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Reposted by Farid
socialmedialab.ca
If you're doing research on online civility or lack thereof, get to know the Civility Analyzer module in @communalytic.org. It can automatically identify toxic, insulting, & threatening posts or posts showing compassion, curiosity, & respect in any text-based dataset. Communalytic.org
June 17, 2025 at 8:38 PM
Reposted by Farid
brandonfriedman.bsky.social
This was the moment, just over a month ago, when the ADL could've put an end to Republicans doing Nazi salutes. They didn't. They chose instead to provide cover by calling it "an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm." Now the sieg heil salute has been normalized.

The ADL literally had ONE JOB.
ADL on X: This is a delicate moment. It’s a new day and yet so many are on edge. Our politics are inflamed, and social media only adds to the anxiety. It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on edge. In this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath. This is a new beginning. Let’s hope for healing and work toward unity in the months and years ahead.
February 22, 2025 at 8:08 PM
Reposted by Farid
citizenlab.ca
The #Eritrean government uses digital transnational repression to silence women activists with online campaigns of gendered abuse, stalking, and doxxing, targeting their reputation, jobs and families. Read our country case study here: citizenlab.ca/case-studies...
January 30, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Reposted by Farid
citizenlab.ca
What is digital transnational repression (DTR) - and why should you care? DTR arises when governments use digital technologies to surveil, intimidate and silence exiled dissidents and diaspora communities.
January 28, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Reposted by Farid
uglygame.bsky.social
No, I don't need a bloody copilot for this document, thank you.

Writing is, in no small part, a tool for thinking. If you outsource that element to a machine that cannot think, you shouldn't be surprised if, at the end of the process, neither you nor your reader are any the wiser.
January 26, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Reposted by Farid
fabiosabatini.bsky.social
Inflation doesn’t just hurt wallets—it shifts votes. New research by Jonathan Federle, @cathrinmohr.bsky.social, and @schularick.bsky.social finds that "inflation surprises" boost support for extremist, populist parties. Let’s unpack these findings. 🧵 #EconSky @kielinstitute.bsky.social
1/10
December 5, 2024 at 1:51 PM
Reposted by Farid
profsanderlinden.bsky.social
In this new article in American Psychologist we respond to critics in detail and clarify two key points for the field;

(1) The prevalence of misinformation in society is substantial when properly defined.

(2) Misinformation causally impacts attitudes and behaviors.

psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...
December 16, 2024 at 11:16 AM
Reposted by Farid
_Great_ thread re Community Notes at X (the model Meta proposes adapting to their platforms)
mbhunzaker.bsky.social Mary Beth Hunzaker @mbhunzaker.bsky.social · Jan 8
Okay, so just a few* thoughts (*this got longer as I wrote 😅….long thread)-
mbhunzaker.bsky.social Mary Beth Hunzaker @mbhunzaker.bsky.social · Jan 7
Having a lot of thoughts & feelings today as someone who’s worked both on FBs misinfo interventions (back when they were making investments) and Birdwatch (pre-Musk Community Notes) 💔. Debating if a thread is worth the inevitable headache 😓
January 8, 2025 at 1:09 PM
Reposted by Farid
socialmedialab.ca
Events of the coming months & years will challenge our democratic institutions & norms. One of the defences against authoritarianism is radical transparency. If you've experience w/JavaScript, particularly EJS & D3.js, join our open-source @Polidashboard.org proj. socialmedialab.ca/2024/01/23/m...
January 6, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Reposted by Farid
socialmedialab.ca
🚨[New Year, New Paper] 🚨Introducing "GraphOptima: A graph layout optimization framework for visualizing large networks (500k+ nodes/ 1M+ edges)" #SNA #SocialNetworkAnalysis #NetworkScience #GraphViz #HighPerformanceComputing www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
A flow chart of the new GraphOptima framework's main modules: the Optimizer to explore the objective space of various solutions; the Layout Generator(s) to create a network layout based on a set of parameters; and the Layout Evaluator(s) to assess the readability of the resulting layout based on a set of readability metrics. A scatter plot depicting the "Objective Space of Layout Solutions for a Randomly Generated ‘Price’ Network" The graphic shows the Pareto front as a scatter plot, representing possible layout solutions for a sample network with 10,000 nodes and 9,999 edges. The network is generated using a preferential attachment model. Each dot represents a ForceAtlas2 layout with specific parameter values for Scaling Factor, Gravity, and Max Iter (the number of iterations). The X, Y, and Z coordinates correspond to the values of the three readability metrics used for optimization: Crosslessness, Normalized Edge Length Variance, and Minimum Angle.
January 5, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Reposted by Farid
pythonhub.dev
Access Google Gemini LLM via OpenAI Python Library

Google Gemini now can be accessed via OpenAI python library:
from openai import ...

https://saeedesmaili.com/notes/access-google-gemini-llm-via-openai-python-library/
January 4, 2025 at 7:15 PM
Reposted by Farid
newslit.org
😫 It's never fun & often tiring when #misinformation takes over the holidays.

And while sometimes it's best to let the falsehoods go & move on, here are some tips for trying to have civil, fact-based conversations ⤵️

Read more: bit.ly/HolidayConvo...

#NewsLiteracy
Text-heavy graphic: How to speak up without starting a showdown. Six best practices for talking to friends and family about sharing falsehoods online. Below there are 6 tips. Here are the titles: 1. Be civil 2. Take your time 3. Find common ground 4. Lay out the facts 5. Public or private? 6. Be patient (and persistent)
December 20, 2024 at 8:46 PM
Reposted by Farid
Also, here is our definition of misinformation about science.... We devote chapter 2 to the vast menagerie of terminology.

nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/2789...
December 20, 2024 at 8:49 PM
Reposted by Farid
rondeibert.bsky.social
For a comprehensive analysis of the psychological and emotional harms caused by victims of digital transnational repression, focusing specifically on gendered harms, see the latest @citizenlab.ca report

citizenlab.ca/2024/12/the-...
December 21, 2024 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by Farid
cbarrie.bsky.social
Pleased to share the latest version of my paper with Arthur Spirling and @lexipalmer.bsky.social on replication using LMs

We show:

1. current applications of LMs in political science research *don't* meet basic standards of reproducibility...
December 17, 2024 at 7:50 PM
Reposted by Farid
jlepler.bsky.social
I am so delighted that my first post shares a beautiful essay by my dear friend Scott Sandage. For years, I have taught his method to my students. Now I can assign this moving explanation of its history (in his voice) published by @joshrgreenberg.bsky.social commonplace.online/article/how-...
How to Read a Book: The X-Ray Method for Achieving a Sustainable “Book-Life Balance” - Commonpla...
This is why you need a plan: to read attentively but efficiently, and sustainably, without surrendering your book-life balance.
commonplace.online
November 20, 2023 at 11:54 AM
Reposted by Farid
andrewchadwick.com
When Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, reports focused on his dismantling of its trust and safety team. But this obscured what turned out to be a deeper long-term shift. Under Musk, X built a new political-economy infrastructure based on advertising “revenue sharing” 🧵1/?
November 6, 2024 at 1:09 PM
Reposted by Farid
socialmedialab.ca
Canadians value factors related trustworthiness & expertise, over an influencer’s attractiveness (i.e., attractiveness, sexiness, elegance) #credibility #trust
December 8, 2024 at 2:20 PM
Reposted by Farid
mjbsp.bsky.social
Psychological inoculation against misinformation does not appear to transfer to real posts or synthetic posts using other misinformation techniques

osf.io/preprints/ps...

#polisky #polpsych #socpsych #misinformation
Abstract that reads Psychological inoculation is a promising and potentially scalable approach to counter misinformation. The goal of inoculation is to teach people to recognize manipulation techniques, such as emotional language, commonly found in misinformation online. While there is substantial evidence that inoculation increases technique recognition when directly assessed, it is not clear if this effect transfers to spontaneous detection of techniques and disengagement with the associated content in real-life contexts. In particular, emotional appeals are abundant on social media and known drivers of attention and engagement. Therefore, we examined the effects of emotional language and emotional manipulation inoculation on attention and engagement in a simulated social media feed environment. Through five pre-registered studies, we found that inoculation only decreased engagement with emotionally presented content when we solely presented synthetic content relevant to the task of identifying emotional manipulation. Any addition of real tweets or even synthetic tweets containing other manipulation techniques (e.g., ad hominem attacks) into the feed appeared to nullify the effect. Our results highlight the importance of assessing misinformation interventions in ecologically-valid contexts to estimate real-world effects. Figure showing regression coefficients of key interaction tests. International are not significant, in general. But there are some hints for those representing synthetic posts
December 9, 2024 at 2:47 PM