Paul Ballot
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paulschal.bsky.social
Paul Ballot
@paulschal.bsky.social
Ex-Ad-Guy and PhD Researcher @ Digital Influence Group / Radboud University. Political Communication & Social Psychology. Digital #Manipulation & #Persuasion, #Disinformation, #LLMs & artificial Agents. He/Him
📌 Netherlands, previously Germany & Austria 🇪🇺
Reposted by Paul Ballot
Two of our PhD students, @yansan.bsky.social and @paulschal.bsky.social, were invited to participate in last week’s Milton Wolf Seminar 2025 in Vienna. A great opportunity for both of them to pitch their research on uncertainty in disinformation and LLM-driven interventions!
April 14, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Reposted by Paul Ballot
Ukraine is Europe!
We stand by Ukraine.

We will step up our support to Ukraine so that they can continue to fight back the agressor.

Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.
February 28, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Reposted by Paul Ballot
Misinformation isn't random - it's strategic. 🧵

In the first cross-national comparative study, we examine 32M tweets from politicians.

We find that misinformation is not a general condition: it is driven by populist radical right parties.

with @julianachueri.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1177/1940...
January 14, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Reposted by Paul Ballot
Very fascinating talk by @lewan.bsky.social can we make people more resilient towards microtargeting by pop-up warnings? Unfortunately not! We need to think further on how to foster ppls competencies for navigating social media
December 6, 2024 at 4:09 PM
Reposted by Paul Ballot
Recently, the Federal Trade Commission (#FTC) finalised its #Click-to-Cancel rule. It restricts deceptive business practices, including recurring fees and misleading cancellation policies for unwanted, hard-to-cancel products. www.federalregister.gov/d/2024-25534 (1/3)
Negative Option Rule
The Federal Trade Commission ("FTC" or "Commission") issues final amendments to the Commission's trade regulation "Rule Concerning Use of Prenotification Negative Option Plans," retitled the "Rule Con...
www.federalregister.gov
November 26, 2024 at 8:29 AM
Reposted by Paul Ballot
New article in Journal of Communication looking at changes to trust in news across 46 countries in the last 10 years.

Trust in news declined in just over half of countries.

It decreased more in countries where TV news use has declined, and/or where social media news use has grown.

A thread:
The link between changing news use and trust: longitudinal analysis of 46 countries
Abstract . Changing levels of public trust in the news are of deep concern to both researchers and practitioners. We use data from 2015 to 2023 in 46 count
academic.oup.com
November 23, 2024 at 7:50 AM
Reposted by Paul Ballot
In promising a political ad free space, they need to define what ads are *not* political, to ensure they don't carry them. Hard.

Other platforms have not been successful in doing so in the past.

Moreover, this decision leaves the online political ad space as a de facto Meta monopoly.

[2/2]
November 21, 2024 at 9:19 AM
Reposted by Paul Ballot
NEW RESEARCH 🙉 Spreading of misinformation: People don’t pretend, they *sincerely believe in fake news*
doi.org/10.1093/pnas...
The misinformation policy challenge is less about inducing good behavior but one of correcting false beliefs
doi.org
November 19, 2024 at 4:06 PM
Hey, I am Paul, a communication PhD student at Radboud University in NL! My background is in social psychology, political communication & advertising. As part of @dig-radboud.bsky.social, I am researching manipulation & persuasion and the role of artificial agents. #CommSky #PsychSky #HCISky #PhDSky
November 19, 2024 at 8:32 AM