Sander van der Linden

@profsanderlinden.bsky.social

34K followers 1K following 380 posts

Professor of Social Psychology in Society at the University of Cambridge and Author of FOOLPROOF: Why We Fall for Misinformation and How to Build Immunity (2023) + The Psychology of Misinformation (2024). Bad News Game.

www.sandervanderlinden.com .. more

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Sander L. van der Linden is a Dutch social psychologist and author who is Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Cambridge. He studies the psychology of social influence, risk, human judgment, and decision-making. He is known for his research on the psychology of social issues, such as fake news, COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and climate change denial. .. more

Sociology 26%

Political science 26%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, Sander van der Linden, Will Jennings , and 7 more Dorothy Bishop, Sander van der Linden, Will Jennings, David Brady, Robert W. Wallace, Mathieu Hainselin, Madeleine Pownall, Manisha Sinha, Mary McAuliffe, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 3d

It's disturbing to see many of the the major figures in moral cognition all over the Epstein files

He was friendly with a huge number of the leading figures in the field, including giving millions to their labs, long after he pled guilty to sexually abusing young girls
www.justice.gov/epstein

www.justice.gov

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 5d

The University of Cambridge has an exciting Assistant, Associate, and Full Professorship of Public Policy open in the new Bennett School of Public Policy. It's a fantastic group with great people, they have a focus on digital policy too! Area open.

www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/term/De...

Reposted by Sander van der Linden

Zion Lights @zionlights.bsky.social · 6d

Here’s what @profsanderlinden.bsky.social has to say about my forthcoming book, Energy is Life. Thank you, Prof!

Released on Feb 3rd.

Pre-order a paperback or e-book in Europe >
amzn.eu/d/3UKW65E

Everywhere else >
www.amazon.com/Energy-Life-...

Reposted by Stephan Lewandowsky, Sander van der Linden

Alan Jagolinzer @jagolinzer.bsky.social · 7d

We are pleased to announce that a keynote speaker for the April Cambridge Disinformation Summit is 2001 Nobel Economist, Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz.

Professor Stiglitz will discuss systemic economic risks from disinformation and from platforms that amplify or monetize disinformation.

Reposted by Sander van der Linden

Alan Jagolinzer @jagolinzer.bsky.social · 7d

@profsanderlinden.bsky.social and I debunked this narrative a while ago.

I have trained and evaluated jet pilots and there is no evidence to support this rage bait.

Our article is linked here:

www.promarket.org/2024/02/06/h...

Reposted by Sander van der Linden, Joseph Schafer

Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 7d

BREAKING: Chief Judge Schiltz sets a contempt hearing for Friday in one of the hundreds of habeas cases in Minnesota pending as a result of Operation Metro Surge, ordering acting ICE Director Todd Lyons personally to appear in court and face contempt. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

This is one of dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed to
comply in recent weeks. The practical consequence of respondents' failure to comply
has almost always been significant hardship to aliens (many of whom have lawfully
lived and worked in the United States for years and done absolutely nothing wrong:
The detention of an alien is extended, or an alien who should remain in Minnesota is
flown to Texas, or an alien who has been flown to Texas is released there and told to
figure out a way to get home.
This Court has been extremely patient with respondents, even though
respondents decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without
making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other
lawsuits that were sure to result.' Respondents have continually assured the Court that
they recognize their obligation to comply with Court orders, and that they have taken
steps to ensure that those orders will be honored going forward. Unfortunately,
though, the violations continue.
The Court's patience is at an end. Accordingly, the Court will order Todd Lyons,
the Acting Director of ICE, to appear personally before the Court and show cause why he
should not be held in contempt of Court. The Court acknowledges that ordering the

head of a federal agency to personally appear is an extraordinary step, but the extent of
ICE's violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary, and lesser measures have been
tried and failed.
ORDER
Based on the foregoing, and on all of the files, records, and proceedings herein,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT:
1. The Court will hold a hearing on Friday, January 30, 2026, at 1:00 pm in
Courtroom 15 (MPLS) before Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz.
Respondent Todd Lyons must appear in person to show cause why he should not be held in contempt for violating the Court's January 14, 2026,
order.
Petitioner's counsel may participate in the hearing, but his attendance is
not required.
If, before the hearing, the parties file a stipulation indicating that
petitioner has been released from custody, the Court will cancel the hearing and will not require Lyons to appear.
Dated: January 26, 2026
Is/ Patrick J. Schiltz
Patrick J. Schiltz, Chief Judge
United States District Court

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 8d

I think it will be very useful for those seeking to undermine democratic discourse

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 8d

eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

How malicious AI swarms can threaten democracy

The fusion of agentic AI and LLMs marks a new frontier in information warfare

eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com

Reposted by Sander van der Linden, Greg Linden

Fil Menczer @fil.bsky.social · 8d

Our latest paper in @science.org warns about malicious AI swarms, agents capable of adaptive influence campaigns at scale. We already observed some in the wild (picture). AI is a real threat to democracy.
#SciencePolicyForum #ScienceResearch 🧪
Paper: doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Network showing an AI swarm -- bots controlled through ChatGPT, in yellow -- and people who followed them on Xitter.

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 10d

In theory yes

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 10d

dataverse.harvard.edu/file.xhtml?f...

dataverse.harvard.edu

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 10d

Thanks! We do have a recent paper implementing this in Swedish schools www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... but we didn't do longitudinal follow-ups. In general, we do know that people need "booster" shots to maintain the effect. How many before permanently "immunized" is an open question...

Bad News in the civics classroom: How serious gameplay fosters teenagers’ ability to discern misinformation techniques

Although the serious game Bad News has been used to inoculate citizens against misinformation, it has not been formally evaluated in traditional classrooms. We therefore evaluated its impact on 516...

www.tandfonline.com

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 11d

Thanks for sharing!

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 11d

Haha thanks and love that idea!

Reposted by Sander van der Linden

Timothy Caulfield @caulfieldtim.bsky.social · 11d

Prebunking misinformation techniques in social media feeds: Instagram field study misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/preb...

"Instagram users in treatment group were significantly & substantially better than the control group in correctly identifying emotional manipulation in a news headline."

Prebunking misinformation techniques in social media feeds: Results from an Instagram field study | HKS Misinformation Review

Boosting psychological defences against misleading content online is an active area of research, but transition from the lab to real-world uptake remains a challenge. We developed a 19-second prebunki...

misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 11d

Lots of caveats of course, including opt-in biases to the campaign and quiz so operational challenges remain but we hope it's a useful guide for rolling out and evaluating inoculation campaigns on social media feeds! Made possible by the great work of our partner Reality Team @deblavoy.bsky.social!

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 11d

Key findings:

✅ Inoculated users showed a 21 ppt increase in their ability to spot emotional manipulation (baseline ability was low)

✅ These effects remained detectable 5 months.

✅ We also increased information-seeking behavior, treatment users were 3x more likely to click on the ad.

3/3

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 11d

We assigned users to a treatment or control group using birth month as a pseudo-randomization mechanism (assuming those born in e.g. May aren't more or less capable in spotting misinfo than those born in e.g. Dec). Those who engaged with the 19-sec ad were then targeted with a quiz vs control 2/3

Reposted by Stephan Lewandowsky, Jessica Taylor Piotrowski

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 11d

New real-world field study *inoculating* against misinformation in live social media scroll feeds out in Harvard Misinfo Review @misinforeview.bsky.social

We targeted +375k users with a short ad on Insta using a novel quasi-experimental method (1/3)

misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/preb...

Reposted by Sander van der Linden, Jane Suiter

Timothy Caulfield @caulfieldtim.bsky.social · 11d

Tremendously important work...👇

How malicious AI swarms can threaten democracy www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @daniel-thilo.bsky.social @kunstjonas.bsky.social et al.

AI swarms are can be used to engineering a "synthetic
consensus" that can manipulate public opinion and perceptions.

Reposted by Sander van der Linden

David Gilbert @davidgilbert.bsky.social · 12d

NEW:

You think disinformation is bad now?

Wait until you hear about "AI swarms" and how they have the potential to upend democracy across the globe

www.wired.com/story/ai-pow...

AI-Powered Disinformation Swarms Are Coming for Democracy

Advances in artificial intelligence are creating a perfect storm for those seeking to spread disinformation at unprecedented speed and scale. And it’s virtually impossible to detect.

www.wired.com

Reposted by Sander van der Linden

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 12d

Experts warn of threat to democracy by ‘AI bot swarms’ infesting social media

Misinformation technology could be deployed at scale to disrupt 2028 US presidential election, AI researchers warn Political leaders could soon launch swarms of human-imitating AI agents to reshape public opinion in a way that threatens to undermine democracy, a high profile group of experts in AI and online misinformation has warned. The Nobel peace prize-winning free-speech activist, Maria Ressa, and leading AI and social science researchers from Berkeley, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge and Yale are among a global consortium flagging the new “disruptive threat” posed by hard-to-detect, malicious “AI swarms” infesting social media and messaging channels. Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Diane Coyle, Peter Thorne, Jonas R. Kunst , and 5 more Diane Coyle, Peter Thorne, Jonas R. Kunst, Alessandro Nai, Andy Reisinger, Greg Linden, Christina Pagel, Jeroen Van Bouwel

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 12d

We have a new paper in Science today on how malicious AI swarms can threaten democracy.

AI systems can already coordinate autonomously, infiltrate communities, and fabricate social consensus.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Led by @kunstjonas.bsky.social & @daniel-thilo.bsky.social!

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 13d

I think Kai mentioned Science Magazine does not have such a policy but Joe said PNAS does, which was news to me.

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 14d

Yeah I think that’s fair

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 14d

Well but as the other colleague mentioned anything can be relevant to the company as they cover nearly all information flows so the scope becomes unwieldy.

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 15d

p.s. I think it’s more common in medicine and adopting their norms is probably a good idea. Ive been excluded from things several times because I declared funding/collabs but then there were colleagues on the same committee who I know also receive funding so transparency norms clearly differ.

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 15d

Yeah I’m not sure if past research funding from a social media company on say misinformation has anything to do with unrelated (unfunded) future papers on misinformation so I guess people can debate what’s reasonable but if the field decides this should be a norm I’m all for maximum transparency.

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 15d

Agreed - I think it’s a good warning sign and Jon and I will be taking some of these recommendations on board for sure as good practice beyond what we do already - it’s a small effort and even though we don’t perceive COI on most work it’s always best to let the reader decide.

Reposted by Dean Eckles

Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 15d

To be fair I had never heard of the practice of disclosing past collaboration on future totally unrelated papers (I don’t know anyone who does that) but I’m not against it, I’m all for greater transparency. My bigger concern is with all the data that doesn’t even get published b/c of corporate COI..

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