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Felix M. Simon Profile picture
Felix M. Simon
@_FelixSimon_
Research Fellow in AI & News @risj_oxford | Research Assoc & DPhil @oiioxford | AI, news, (mis)info, democracy | Affiliate @TowCenter @unc_citap | My views etc…
Jul 7 • 45 tweets • 7 min read
How harmful is GenAI around elections? Will it trigger a misinformation apocalypse and upend elections?

I am happy to finally be able to share @Sacha_Altay’s & my answers to these and other questions on which we have been working for a year and which is out via @knightcolumbia. Image I cannot easily summarise the whole piece because it runs to 93 pages, but attempt short overview (that necessarily condenses and reduces a lot of nuance) below.

For the full piece (also available as a PDF) look no further than here: knightcolumbia.org/content/dont-p…
Dec 3, 2023 • 35 tweets • 8 min read
🚨New working paper on AI disclosure around news 🤖📝

Do audiences perceive news labeled as AI-generated as more or less trustworthy?

In work led by @BenjaminToff we find that the answer seems to be "less" 😳

🔗 Pre-Print:
🧵-summary below ⬇️ doi.org/10.31235/osf.i…
Image Main-findings:

1️⃣ People perceived news labeled as AI-generated as less trustworthy, even though they did not evaluated these articles as less accurate/more biased.

2️⃣ Those who already trust news a lot & know more about how journalism works are more affected by the AI labels.
Feb 15, 2023 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Cas has a good point here.

Knowing the Guardian (and looking at the size of the investigation with many news organisations involved) we will likely get more information in the coming days.

But whenever a company claims "We can flip" elections, I get immediately skeptical. Reminds me of this piece I wrote in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal which looked at the rhetoric of these companies and the US political consultancies @CasMudde mentions: Lots of grand claims, very little evidence of big effects.

May 25, 2022 • 30 tweets • 10 min read
I was supposed to present my and @evoluchico’s thoughts on how the field of disinformation studies could be reformed at the #ica22 pre-conference #afterdisinfo (unc.live/39Motq9)

As I sadly cannot attend, I summarise it here…📝 Too Big to Fail. Reforming Disinformation Studies from the I Disinformation is now firmly entrenched in various academic disciplines & well-funded by various actors. Journalists continue to display a keen interest not least given a multitude of crises which regularly bring the topic back into focus.
Jul 20, 2021 • 48 tweets • 14 min read
🚨Publication alert🚨

⁉️Does the ‘Infodemic’ make much sense? Did we really live through one?
📝In our new paper for New Media & Society, @evoluchico and I take these ideas to court.
💥 Our answers: No & No

Find out why in the thread…

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14… In early 2020, the term ‘infodemic’ was suddenly everywhere after a WHO situation report stated the following… Image
Sep 29, 2020 • 25 tweets • 9 min read
I see Cambridge Analytica is trending again because of this Channel 4 documentary exposing the Trump campaign’s attempted deterrence of Black voters in 2016.

Unpopular opinion: This documentary has some big structural flaws.

Why? Hear me out… A general point: How is it possible that not a single expert was consulted on this?

Lots of ppl have studied this & would have been able to contextualise some of the claims…

E.g. @kreissdaniel, @shannimcg, @jesse_b_p, @ajungherr, @sivavaid, @davekarpf, @eithanhersh
Sep 28, 2020 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
📰 “Anything that Causes Chaos”: The Organizational Behavior of Russia Today (RT) by @oiioxford colleagues @monaelswah & @pnhoward

I’ve been waiting for this to come out ever since I read an early draft last year.

Link to 🔓version: academic.oup.com/joc/advance-ar…

Some 🔑-findings… What makes this such a great piece of scholarship is not only the great effort behind it (rivalling some investigative journalism) but that it allows us to see RT through the eyes of those who work(ed) for it & puts an emphasis on the internal, organizational dynamics.
Sep 27, 2020 • 33 tweets • 11 min read
The BBC was once again in the news this weekend. But why is the UK right so keen on attacking the BBC? And what does the science say about some of their key arguments? A Sunday thread... 🧵 Image First, a common view on the British right that the BBC is biased to the left & only represents the views of "London, left-wing elites".
Sep 26, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Setting aside the obvious politics for a moment, this is an unwise move.

If the pandemic has shown one thing (and we have the data to prove it) then how important trust in the news & in respected institutions like the BBC is. This will likely improve neither. But, as @CharlieBeckett argues, probably not quite the end of days (I’m a bit more sceptical but it’s a good argument).
Sep 19, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Rest in peace, rest in power RGB and my deepest condolences to my American friends. I know that 2020 has just gotten a lot worse for you all. And now get off Twitter, get organised, get out the vote, and vote like your future depends on it—because it does.

That’s the best way to honour her legacy. Nothing’s decided yet.
Sep 9, 2020 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
“Donald Trump admitted he knew weeks before the first confirmed US coronavirus death that the virus was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious and "more deadly than even your strenuous flus," and that he repeatedly played it down publicly”

Wow. Just wow.

amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/09/09… Interesting discussion re Woodward should have released the information sooner.

Hard to guess the counterfactual here, but I personally doubt an earlier release would have made a major difference. Remember how critical news coverage has swayed the Trump admin? Me neither...
Sep 3, 2020 • 9 tweets • 5 min read
✨Paper alert✨

“Diversity in British, Swedish, and German Newsrooms: Problem Awareness, Measures, and Achievements”

Now out in @JournPractice, lead by the great @julialueck, w/ @Tanjev, @AlexaBorchardt, Sabine Kieslich & myself.

tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10….

A short 🧵… 🔑-bits: Diversity is possible when leaders lead,…

2) closely monitor progress as a base for strategic diversity management.

3) Acknowledge & promote different, diverse perspectives in newsroom routines.

4) Reflect & address structural inequalities inside & outside news orgs.
Aug 31, 2020 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
📰 "Public Service Media in a Digital Media Environment: Performance from an Audience Perspective" by @annikasehl

🔑-bit: Survey of PSM attitudes in 🇩🇪🇫🇷🇬🇧. Small diff between countries; information quality by PSM seen as higher; various factors shape attitudes towards PSM… Image …including PSM news use, interest in news, political interest, as well as on demographic variables.

🔓 Link to open-access version: cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommun…
Aug 12, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Exhibit ∞ for science reporting gone wrong...

"A study says at least 800 people have died globally because of coronavirus-related misinformation"

But does it? (You can already guess that the answer is "No")
bbc.co.uk/news/world-537… The study itself (Link: ajtmh.org/content/journa…) doesn't really study any such thing nor would its methodology be able to reliably support such a claim (setting aside the fact that it's next to impossible to make a sound estimate of deaths from misinfo on a global scale).
Aug 6, 2020 • 22 tweets • 7 min read
I see a lot of ppl sharing & applauding this piece (the title summarises it neatly, but basically paywalls = bad for democracy).

While I think that Robinson makes interesting points, it's worth having a closer look at some of them. Some thoughts…

currentaffairs.org/2020/08/the-tr… To follow is a thread that is not meant as a substantial critique (not least because the piece has sections that fall outside my area of expertise), but more as an addendum with some comments on one of the key arguments.
Jul 29, 2020 • 12 tweets • 8 min read
Why people (do not) trust the news, what they understand "trust" to mean/be & where it comes from are big questions. I tried to write about them for the @NZZ.

The 📰is in German, but I've gathered my key sources & studies in the 🧵below.

nzz.ch/feuilleton/ver… 1) This article by @Csquaredfisher is a great overview of the evolution of trust in news and why it is a surprisingly complicated concept & hard to measure.

tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
Jul 22, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
This is a clickbait headline and the piece itself is more nuanced.

Having said that, I still think the core argument (that the UK has stellar treatment & vaccine R&D which makes it a leading country in beating Covid-19) is still flawed. For one, taking mainly the Oxford vaccine as an example of how the UK has done more than any other country to stop Covid is a bit one-sided, especially considering the efforts from multiple countries in e.g. developing vaccines or treatments.

nytimes.com/interactive/20…
Jul 15, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
The COVID-19 rampage in the news continues... Some context: https://t.co/rd8DbnuLgk
Jul 13, 2020 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
🚨📝Publication alert: Why do right-wing populists attack & distrust public service broadcasters & media like ORF, ARD or SVT?

This is what @annikasehl, @ralphschroeder & I looked at for 🇦🇹,🇩🇪&🇸🇪 in our new paper now out with ICG.

🧵 with key points...

doi.org/10.1177/174804… In essence, we wanted to find out if right-wing populists are a growing threat to PSM, whether this threat is isolated or potentially indicative of a broader and more sustained pattern, and if so, what the potential remedies in going forward could look like.
Jul 12, 2020 • 11 tweets • 5 min read
Sunday-🧵 ahead...

As some ppl have asked me about this: below some readings on the link between contemporary politics & fandom, or what we can learn from fan studies to understand things like QAnon, Momentum or Bernie stans... Some journalists realised early that this is, actually, a “thing”. This FT piece by the great @KuperSimon is a good primer on the link between politics and fandom: ft.com/content/a46fa5…
Jul 6, 2020 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
The @UN's "Verified" initiative asked me for my 2ct on Coronavirus misinformation and how we can tackle it. Here's my response (links in the 🧵).

TL/DR: I'm not uber concerned about COVID-19 misinformation but it is a problem. The good news: We all can do something about it. The study I am talking about is this one by the @risj_oxford’s @jsbrennen where he studied types, sources, and claims of COVID-19 misinformation: reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/types-sources-…