ScienceGeist

Nearly half of the Twitter accounts spreading messages on the social media platform about the coronavirus pandemic are likely bots, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University said.

Rows over eugenics reveal how difficult it is to 'decouple' controversial concepts in our heads.

Academics are warning that universities restrict their freedom by surveilling social media posts.

Scientists are rapidly posting findings about the new coronavirus outbreak online, accelerating the speed of scientific discoveries - and of misinformation.

In a context where citizens struggle to distinguish facts from fabricated claims online, scientists, policymakers and media face similar dilemmas.

From online journal clubs to 'tweetorials' to conference updates, social media is changing the dissemination and discussion of biomedicine.

A brief review of studies linking social media and article-level performance.

The social-media platform is often a tool for procrastination, says Jet-Sing M. Lee. But what else can it be?

The spread of fake news on social media became a public concern in the United States after the 2016 presidential election. This article examines exposure to and sharing of fake news by registered voters on Twitter.

A new study suggests that scientists must embrace not fear Twitter.

Social media can promote openness in research as international partnerships and collaborations are jeopardised, while increased adoption by scientists can also redress the balance that has shifted towards ill-evidenced news on some platforms.

Tweeting can help science outreach, but may take persistence.

After studying 23,005 comments left on videos about science and related topics, a researcher says, “I could see why people would not want to be on YouTube.”

Neuroscientist Caitlin Vander Weele gives us a crash course on academic Twitter in our new blog post. She highlights the benefits of using social media as a scientist and gives tips on how to optimize the experience.

Academics have scoured Facebook pages in the name of science. But the troves they’ve amassed are sometimes unsecured and now pose a privacy risk.

Facebook has recently announced a substantial tightening of access restrictions to the APIs of Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms it owns. While these changes may generate some positive publicity for the company, they are likely to compound the real problem, further diminishing transparency and opportunities for independent oversight.

Nature peers into the evidence for ‘psychographic targeting’.

The privacy backlash over Cambridge Analytica and Facebook may lead to explosive consequences for academics.

The website Levers in Heels, which features African women in STEM, in January called on the internet to tweet the names of African women scientists. People shared hundreds.

For most of history, the easiest way to block the spread of an idea was to keep it from being mechanically disseminated. In today’s networked environment, it would seem that censorship ought to be impossible. This should be the golden age of free speech.

PhD candidate Samantha Yammine is trying to break the stereotype that Scientists are cold, boring and out of touch with the hashtag #ScientistsWhoSelfie.

Social media gets all the attention for polarization, but TV is doing more than its share.

Last week another nonprofit platform called ScholarlyHub announced its plans for a site where researchers can also exchange ideas and work—if they pay a subscription fee.

I doubt that twitter has made my academic papers directly more impactful, but does that stop me tweeting about my group’s work? No way.

Enthusiasm for using Twitter as a source of data in the social sciences extends to measuring the impact of research with Twitter data being a key component in the new altmetrics approach.

U.S. adults see scientists as intelligent, but not always warm. This is a problem because people's perceptions of scientists' warmth influence their trust in scientific information. Could scientists be improving trust via social media?

Social media is not only a way for authors and publishers to disseminate research findings, it’s also increasingly being used by researchers to discover and read scientific content.

ResearchGate and similar services represent a “gamification” of research, drawing on features usually associated with online games, like rewards, rankings and levels.