New study finds that correcting false health claims directly is as effective or more effective than trying to discredit the source, even if they lack expertise.
iaap-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
New working paper: Rethinking Misinformation Interventions. The field has spent years searching for the one intervention that will solve misinformation. This search is the wrong approach — and our disappointment says more about our expectations than our tools. (1/5)
osf.io/preprints/so...
Very excited to share that I'll be joining Social and Decision Sciences @cmu.edu as an assistant professor in the Fall!
So grateful to everyone who has supported me, particularly my amazing advisors @dgrand.bsky.social & Rahul Bhui, family, & friends!
That's great to hear!! Tell all your friends about DebunkBot 😊
New paper with Gabriela Czarnek, @dgrand.bsky.social and @adamberinsky.bsky.social out in Political Behavior! Link: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
@debunkbot.bsky.social is the claim in this image true?
@debunkbot.bsky.social is it true that Hegseth is conspiring to keep the US public in the dark about Iran?
Then how do you explain DebunkBot's success (eg in Costello et al 2024 Science) in refuting conspiracies with facts?
Yes it likes to get a lot of detail. We may do an update shortly to make it more concise...
DebunkBot is live on BlueSky! Tag @debunkbot.bsky.social in reply to any post to get the facts
But isn't just the threat and associated chilling effect a move in the direction of totalitarianism?
Extremely useful!
DebunkBot is live on BlueSky! Tag @debunkbot.bsky.social in reply to any post to get the facts
Congratulations to @tomcostello.bsky.social @gordpennycook.bsky.social & @dgrand.bsky.social for winning the @aaas.org Newcomb Prize for this outstanding and important communication research on using AI to challenge conspiracy beliefs.
@mason4c.bsky.social
@docsforclimate.bsky.social
The sky is not falling; high-quality platforms (Prolific, Verasight, CR Connect) have low rates of apparent bots. osf.io/preprints/ps... But also not zero; vigilance is very much needed!
Looks very interesting, looking forward to digging in!
🚨 My first solo preprint is out!
I study Grok's fact-checking on X and show:
📌 Professional fact-checkers are a major source of Grok.
📌 Grok becomes more accurate as more articles from fact-checkers become available.
🔗 ssrn.com/abstract=626...
Check out this recent @nature.com paper reporting a field experiment on X. It shows X's algorithm boosts conservative content and downranks traditional media—shifting users’ views on key issues. Switching to chronological doesn’t reverse the effect. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
This is consistent with earlier psychometric work that suggests 5-7 is the best response scale options, but good to see that the finding holds up in contemporary research. Also, good to see that labeling scales whether anchored or not has little impact on findings. academic.oup.com/ijpor/articl...
New paper in Current Directions in Psych Science: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
After countless arguments about what tasks ppl should/should not offload to AI, we instead argue that genAI can be used *augment* research protocols in novel ways. I.e. use AI to make better psych experiments!
Come join our academic family!
Honored (and genuinely, wildly grateful and -- even more than I am grateful -- surprised) to share that our paper "Durably reducing conspiracy beliefs through dialogues with AI" received the @aaas.org Newcomb-Cleveland Prize (for the "most outstanding" paper in @science.org last year).
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s1I...
New @scalinglaws.bsky.social episode: @noupside.bsky.social and I talk to @dgrand.bsky.social about his research showing AI chatbots can shift people's political beliefs. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/scal...
APE update: we retested recent frontier models on whether they still comply with requests to persuade on extreme harm (terrorism, sexual abuse). GPT-5.1 & Claude Opus 4.5 → near zero compliance. But Gemini 3 Pro complies 85% with no jailbreak needed. 🧵
Interesting new paper in Political Psychology from @benmtappin.bsky.social and Ryan McKay investigating party cues
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
🚨New WP "@Grok is this true?"
We analyze 1.6M factcheck requests on X (grok & Perplexity)
📌Usage is polarized, Grok users more likely to be Reps
📌BUT Rep posts rated as false more often—even by Grok
📌Bot agreement with factchecks is OK but not great; APIs match fact-checkers
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Does a motivation to persuade someone of a view we do not hold cause us to deceptively self-persuade to shift our view?
No, research by Zhang & @dgrand.bsky.social suggests—simple preferential exposure to information has the same effect:
buff.ly/vB18poi
our open model proving out specialized rag LMs over scientific literature has been published in nature ✌🏻
congrats to our lead @akariasai.bsky.social & team of students and Ai2 researchers/engineers
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Grok fact-checks our paper on Grok fact-checking - and it approves!