Philipp Lorenz-Spreen
@lorenzspreen.bsky.social
Heading the Computational Social Science group within SynoSys & ScaDS.AI at TU Dresden, where we study how online information environments impact public discourse and develop alternatives that benefit democracy.
CSS-Group: https://css-synosys.github.io/
CSS-Group: https://css-synosys.github.io/
We haven’t really tried alternative Social Media. Just little bits of transparency about from where and how information is reaching us, is used by people immediately. If chosen well, such cues could empower users and reward quality. Some suggestions from some time ago: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
November 23, 2025 at 7:28 PM
We haven’t really tried alternative Social Media. Just little bits of transparency about from where and how information is reaching us, is used by people immediately. If chosen well, such cues could empower users and reward quality. Some suggestions from some time ago: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Great to be back where I studied: This week I'm in Munich at
@lmumuenchen.bsky.social from the faculty of physics to the faculty of social sciences, for a Computational Social Science Fellowship, kindly hosted by @valeriehase.bsky.social
www.sw.lmu.de/en/faculty-a...
@lmumuenchen.bsky.social from the faculty of physics to the faculty of social sciences, for a Computational Social Science Fellowship, kindly hosted by @valeriehase.bsky.social
www.sw.lmu.de/en/faculty-a...
October 27, 2025 at 9:26 AM
Great to be back where I studied: This week I'm in Munich at
@lmumuenchen.bsky.social from the faculty of physics to the faculty of social sciences, for a Computational Social Science Fellowship, kindly hosted by @valeriehase.bsky.social
www.sw.lmu.de/en/faculty-a...
@lmumuenchen.bsky.social from the faculty of physics to the faculty of social sciences, for a Computational Social Science Fellowship, kindly hosted by @valeriehase.bsky.social
www.sw.lmu.de/en/faculty-a...
Cool paper by @pournaki.bsky.social about the very pronounced issue alignment on german Twitter/X: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/IC...
September 9, 2025 at 10:19 AM
Cool paper by @pournaki.bsky.social about the very pronounced issue alignment on german Twitter/X: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/IC...
We have to finally move our digital public sphere out of those platforms and create European, democratic alternatives!
August 26, 2025 at 7:22 AM
We have to finally move our digital public sphere out of those platforms and create European, democratic alternatives!
Important preprint by @pietronickl.bsky.social @msultan.bsky.social Caedyn Stinson, @fstock.bsky.social Ralph Hertwig @anaskozyreva.bsky.social,
touching so many points to move the misinfo discussion forward, like feedback-loops, systemic factors and rhetoric, great work!
osf.io/preprints/so...
touching so many points to move the misinfo discussion forward, like feedback-loops, systemic factors and rhetoric, great work!
osf.io/preprints/so...
August 14, 2025 at 10:13 AM
Important preprint by @pietronickl.bsky.social @msultan.bsky.social Caedyn Stinson, @fstock.bsky.social Ralph Hertwig @anaskozyreva.bsky.social,
touching so many points to move the misinfo discussion forward, like feedback-loops, systemic factors and rhetoric, great work!
osf.io/preprints/so...
touching so many points to move the misinfo discussion forward, like feedback-loops, systemic factors and rhetoric, great work!
osf.io/preprints/so...
Our team "Computational Social Science" at SynoSys is growing! Welcome @baottruong.bsky.social and Ezequiel Lopez-Lopez!
At the moment, they are all @ic2s2.bsky.social, say hi get to know their research.
And check out our website: css-synosys.github.io
At the moment, they are all @ic2s2.bsky.social, say hi get to know their research.
And check out our website: css-synosys.github.io
July 22, 2025 at 7:24 AM
Our team "Computational Social Science" at SynoSys is growing! Welcome @baottruong.bsky.social and Ezequiel Lopez-Lopez!
At the moment, they are all @ic2s2.bsky.social, say hi get to know their research.
And check out our website: css-synosys.github.io
At the moment, they are all @ic2s2.bsky.social, say hi get to know their research.
And check out our website: css-synosys.github.io
On Wednesday at 10:30am I will be speaking at @re-publica.com about
"Societal tipping points: The spiral of attention and platform power, and how we can still escape it"
1/3
"Societal tipping points: The spiral of attention and platform power, and how we can still escape it"
1/3
May 26, 2025 at 4:53 PM
On Wednesday at 10:30am I will be speaking at @re-publica.com about
"Societal tipping points: The spiral of attention and platform power, and how we can still escape it"
1/3
"Societal tipping points: The spiral of attention and platform power, and how we can still escape it"
1/3
Finally, we suggest to look for inspiration in fields like public health or climate science to develop a triangulating between experimental methods on the individual level, observational methods and causal inference on the collective level, and theory and computational methods to bridge the gap:
May 15, 2025 at 7:54 AM
Finally, we suggest to look for inspiration in fields like public health or climate science to develop a triangulating between experimental methods on the individual level, observational methods and causal inference on the collective level, and theory and computational methods to bridge the gap:
We walk through several properties that are typical for complex systems and specifically for social media and how individual-level approaches to infer causality may be misguided and how that can be mitigated:
May 15, 2025 at 7:49 AM
We walk through several properties that are typical for complex systems and specifically for social media and how individual-level approaches to infer causality may be misguided and how that can be mitigated:
Looking forward to my session @re-publica.com and what an honor to be listed along so many other great speakers!
May 7, 2025 at 1:18 PM
Looking forward to my session @re-publica.com and what an honor to be listed along so many other great speakers!
Kicking off @complenet.bsky.social in Fortaleza, Brazil what an exciting place and conference, looking forward to my keynote on Thursday morning!
April 22, 2025 at 12:32 PM
Kicking off @complenet.bsky.social in Fortaleza, Brazil what an exciting place and conference, looking forward to my keynote on Thursday morning!
indeed weird, I did not expect normal papers to appear there...
March 26, 2025 at 4:22 PM
indeed weird, I did not expect normal papers to appear there...
Some associations that studies find are beneficial: people on digital media seem to participate more in politics, are exposed to diverse information, can express themselves and have better political knowledge. However, in the update, results for knowledge and exposure got increasingly mixed. 3/5
March 8, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Some associations that studies find are beneficial: people on digital media seem to participate more in politics, are exposed to diverse information, can express themselves and have better political knowledge. However, in the update, results for knowledge and exposure got increasingly mixed. 3/5
Digital Media is associated with a whole spectrum of variables that are relevant for democracy. Within most of those dimensions there is clear agreement among the studies: for affective polarization, mistrust, populism, participation, hate speech, misinformation, group formation and hate speech. 2/5
March 8, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Digital Media is associated with a whole spectrum of variables that are relevant for democracy. Within most of those dimensions there is clear agreement among the studies: for affective polarization, mistrust, populism, participation, hate speech, misinformation, group formation and hate speech. 2/5
February 27, 2025 at 12:19 PM
Worryingly high gains for AfD, but at least democratic parties can form a government, for now… Polarized in different directions (esp. young voters), surprisingly rapid rise of die Linke, and an extremely high voter turnout. Some fit the pattern of digital media assoc: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
February 24, 2025 at 6:55 AM
Worryingly high gains for AfD, but at least democratic parties can form a government, for now… Polarized in different directions (esp. young voters), surprisingly rapid rise of die Linke, and an extremely high voter turnout. Some fit the pattern of digital media assoc: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
I mean, that the story of “neutral platforms” and “freedom of expression” is a joke was already clear, but I didn't expect them to be so blatant (screenshots from my instagram), or am I missing something?
January 21, 2025 at 11:29 AM
I mean, that the story of “neutral platforms” and “freedom of expression” is a joke was already clear, but I didn't expect them to be so blatant (screenshots from my instagram), or am I missing something?
More important than ever to be very clear that research on misinformation is not censorship… let’s see how this will unfold:
www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...
www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...
January 21, 2025 at 8:58 AM
More important than ever to be very clear that research on misinformation is not censorship… let’s see how this will unfold:
www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...
www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...
Just casually opening x and getting unsolicited notifications to check out a far-right extremist‘s post…. this can’t be explained by any kind of personalisation but rather interference with the upcoming election.
December 22, 2024 at 11:08 AM
Just casually opening x and getting unsolicited notifications to check out a far-right extremist‘s post…. this can’t be explained by any kind of personalisation but rather interference with the upcoming election.
Over there at X the only useful feature that is left are community notes
November 20, 2024 at 5:02 PM
Over there at X the only useful feature that is left are community notes
Remember those friction interventions that aimed at going against this design, back then on Twitter? Maybe good to reconsider "slowing down" the system?
November 20, 2024 at 9:04 AM
Remember those friction interventions that aimed at going against this design, back then on Twitter? Maybe good to reconsider "slowing down" the system?
Original and political content featuring outrage and anger was more likely to be subsequently retweeted by others. Our findings may denote adaptive strategies in the incentive structure of social media that rewards such content.
July 3, 2024 at 6:37 PM
Original and political content featuring outrage and anger was more likely to be subsequently retweeted by others. Our findings may denote adaptive strategies in the incentive structure of social media that rewards such content.
When creating content, participants were more likely to be motivated by the goals of informing and persuading others, for which they used negative language and expressed outrage. In contrast, entertaining content and positive language was used for socializing and attention.
July 3, 2024 at 6:36 PM
When creating content, participants were more likely to be motivated by the goals of informing and persuading others, for which they used negative language and expressed outrage. In contrast, entertaining content and positive language was used for socializing and attention.
We found that overall, expressing one's opinion, bringing attention to a topic, informing others, and connecting with others were most important during ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Motives differed for sharing (retweets) vs. creating (original, quote, reply) content.
July 3, 2024 at 6:36 PM
We found that overall, expressing one's opinion, bringing attention to a topic, informing others, and connecting with others were most important during ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Motives differed for sharing (retweets) vs. creating (original, quote, reply) content.