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Twitter accounts tied to China lied that COVID came from Maine lobsters

Twitter accounts tied to China lied that COVID came from Maine lobsters

Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center said public health disinformation from China-based social media accounts is nothing new. "Early in the pandemic, Chinese sources spread the theory that SARS CoV-2 originated at Fort Detrick and was spread to China by U.S. military," she said. "The platforms can remove it, or if they decide against doing so, can downgrade it or flag it and attach fact-checking content."

Facebook is like chairs. No, telephones. No, cars. No …

Facebook is like chairs. No, telephones. No, cars. No …

Zachary Loeb, a doctoral candidate in the School of Arts & Sciences, spoke about Facebook’s attempts to compare the platform to simpler, less threatening technologies. “There used to be this utopian aura where they had been trying to act as though they were the latest in the stream of these transformative [communication] technologies,” he said. “Now they’re kind of like, ‘We’re this banal, everyday technology that we’ve all gotten used to, and we understand it’s screwing up the environment and actually really annoys you and people die all the time because of it, but you can’t imagine getting rid of it anytime soon.’”

TikTok talk
Two people sitting together looking at a phone with a TikTok logo

In linguistics, “whoever’s cool leads the change,” which explains why trends come and go via TikTok, says linguistics professor Nicole Holliday.

TikTok talk

Largely characterized as a Gen Z phenomenon, TikTok is a video-sharing app with more than 100 million active users in the U.S. alone—and it’s changing the way that we speak, says sociolinguist Nicole Holliday.

Kristina García

Study finds surprising source of social influence
cartoon social media influencer headshot against background of social media icons.

Study finds surprising source of social influence

A new study co-authored by ASC’s Damon Centola finds that as prominent and revered as social influencers seem to be, they are unlikely to change a person’s behavior by example, and might actually be detrimental to the cause.

From Annenberg School for Communication

The Panoptic Sort: Surveillance Q&A with Oscar Gandy
graphic profile of a human overlaid with images of the modern tech world

The Panoptic Sort: Surveillance Q&A with Oscar Gandy

With the second edition of his classic 1993 book “The Panoptic Sort” recently published, Gandy discusses the past, present, and future of surveillance.

From Annenberg School for Communication

Community concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine tracked by Twitter
Six maps of the US highlighting Twitter keywords reflected in a word map.

COVID-19 Vaccine Topics Vary Across Eight ACP Communities. Adapted from Guntuku et al., Vaccine, 2021. (Image: Penn LDI)

Community concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine tracked by Twitter

A study of vaccine-related Twitter posts reveals significant differences in concerns people have when broken down by age, race, population density, and religious beliefs.

From Penn LDI

Partisan politics and the opioid epidemic: A social media analysis
Ball of red and blue prescription drug capsules.

Partisan politics and the opioid epidemic: A social media analysis

Researchers at Penn Medicine explored how partisanship might affect legislative progress on the opioid epidemic by analyzing the content of state legislators’ opioid-related social media posts over time.

From Penn LDI

Facebook calls links to depression inconclusive. These researchers disagree

Facebook calls links to depression inconclusive. These researchers disagree

Melissa Hunt of the School of Arts & Sciences questioned Facebook’s argument that the poor mental health outcomes tied to use of their platform can be mitigated with self-discipline. “All of the things that would contribute to these platforms being healthier for people to use, which is basically spend less time, don't follow strangers, don't spend time passively scrolling through this random feed that's being suggested to you," Hunt says. "That completely undermines their whole business model."