Viral Polls Are Not Representative Polls

Political scientist Kevin Reuning scrapes 90 days of poll posts from a prolific Bluesky polling account, extracts each result with an LLM, and shows that the polls that get reposted most are the ones that look better for Democrats than the race average, so people who follow polls through their feeds see a skewed picture.

Research · Data Science · Politics · Social Media

Across the Globe, People Increasingly Say Social Media Is Harming Democracy

A Pew Research Center report on surveys across many countries finds that the view that social media is bad for democracy has grown since 2022 in places like Germany and Japan. Most people say social media leads to manipulation and division, yet many also say it informs people and gives them a political voice, with views varying by age, education and platform use.

Research · Social Media · Democracy · Research · Politics