Explanipedia

Decentralized propaganda in the era of digital media: The massive presence of the Chinese state on Douyin Open

Yingdan Lu, Jennifer Pan, Xu Xu, Yiqing Xu · 2025

The rise of social media in the digital era poses unprecedented challenges to authoritarian regimes that aim to influence public attitudes and behaviors. To address these challenges, we argue that authoritarian regimes have adopted a decen…

The Effects of Political Advertising on Facebook and Instagram before the 2020 US Election Open

Hunt Allcott, Matthew Gentzkow, Roee Levy, Adriana Crespo-Tenorio, Natasha Dumas , et al. · 2025

The Effect of Deactivating Facebook and Instagram on Users’ Emotional State Open

Hunt Allcott, Matthew Gentzkow, Benjamin Wittenbrink, Juan Carlos Cisneros, Adriana Crespo-Tenorio , et al. · 2025

How do social media feed algorithms affect attitudes and behavior in an election campaign? Open

Andrew M. Guess, Neil Malhotra, Jennifer Pan, Pablo Barberá, Hunt Allcott , et al. · 2025

We investigated the effects of Facebook's and Instagram's feed algorithms during the 2020 US election. We assigned a sample of consenting users to reverse-chronologically-ordered feeds instead of the default algorithms. Moving users out of…

Reshares on social media amplify political news but do not detectably affect beliefs or opinions Open

Andrew M. Guess, Neil Malhotra, Jennifer Pan, Pablo Barberá, Hunt Allcott , et al. · 2025

We studied the effects of exposure to reshared content on Facebook during the 2020 US election by assigning a random set of consenting, US-based users to feeds that did not contain any reshares over a 3-month period. We find that removing …

Enhanced Total Weight Loss 2 Years Post-Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass with Longer Biliopancreatic Limb Open

Miya Yoshida, Diana Luong, Sally Tan, Jennifer Pan, J. Luu , et al. · 2025

Decentralized Propaganda in the Era of Digital Media: The Massive Presence of the Chinese State on Douyin Open

Yingdan Lu, Jennifer Pan, Xu Xu, Yiqing Xu · 2025

The Effect of Deactivating Facebook and Instagram on Users’ Emotional State Open

Hunt Allcott, Matthew Gentzkow, Benjamin Wittenbrink, Juan Carlos Cisneros, Adriana Crespo-Tenorio , et al. · 2025

The Effects of Political Advertising on Facebook and Instagram Before the 2020 US Election Open

Hunt Allcott, Matthew Gentzkow, Roee Levy, Adriana Crespo-Tenorio, Natasha Dumas , et al. · 2025

Biased LLMs can Influence Political Decision-Making Open

Jillian Fisher, Shangbin Feng, Robert Aron, Thomas Richardson, Yejin Choi , et al. · 2025

Across the firewall: Foreign media’s role in shaping Chinese social media narratives on the Russo-Ukrainian War Open

Hans W. A. Hanley, Yingdan Lu, Jennifer Pan · 2024

There is a widespread perception that China’s digital censorship distances its people from the global internet, and the Chinese Communist Party, through state-controlled media, is the main gatekeeper of information about foreign affairs. O…

Biased AI can Influence Political Decision-Making Open

Jillian Fisher, Shangbin Feng, Robert Aron, Thomas Richardson, Yejin Choi , et al. · 2024

As modern large language models (LLMs) become integral to everyday tasks, concerns about their inherent biases and their potential impact on human decision-making have emerged. While bias in models are well-documented, less is known about …

China’s internet controls: What if citizens disengage? Open

Matt DeButts, Jennifer Pan · 2024

For thirty years, the Chinese internet has been characterized by engagement between citizens and the government, and between the Chinese internet and the global internet. In this commentary, we formalize the concept of disengagement: the u…

January 6 arrests and media coverage do not remobilize conservatives on social media Open

Ross Dahlke, Jennifer Pan · 2024

Social media’s pivotal role in catalyzing social movements is widely acknowledged across scientific disciplines. Past research has predominantly explored social media’s ability to instigate initial mobilization while leaving the question o…

The effects of Facebook and Instagram on the 2020 election: A deactivation experiment Open

Hunt Allcott, Matthew Gentzkow, Winter Mason, Arjun Wilkins, Pablo Barberá , et al. · 2024

We study the effect of Facebook and Instagram access on political beliefs, attitudes, and behavior by randomizing a subset of 19,857 Facebook users and 15,585 Instagram users to deactivate their accounts for 6 wk before the 2020 U.S. elect…

The Diffusion and Reach of (Mis)Information on Facebook during the U.S. 2020 Election Open

Sandra González‐Bailón, David Lazer, Pablo Barberá, William Godel, Hunt Allcott , et al. · 2024

Social media creates the possibility for rapid, viral spread of content, but how many posts actually reach millions? And is misinformation special in how it propagates? We answer these questions by analyzing the virality of and exposure to…

Partisan conflict over content moderation is more than disagreement about facts Open

Ruth E. Appel, Jennifer Pan, Margaret E. Roberts · 2023

Social media companies have come under increasing pressure to remove misinformation from their platforms, but partisan disagreements over what should be removed have stymied efforts to deal with misinformation in the United States. Current…

Author Correction: Like-minded sources on Facebook are prevalent but not polarizing Open

Brendan Nyhan, Jaime E. Settle, Emily Thorson, Magdalena Wojcieszak, Pablo Barberá , et al. · 2023

Replication Data for: Partisan conflict over content moderation is more than disagreement about facts Open

Ruth E. Appel, Jennifer Pan, Margaret E. Roberts · 2023

Social media companies have come under increasing pressure to remove misinformation from their platforms, but partisan disagreements over what should be removed have stymied efforts to deal with misinformation in the US. Current explanatio…

Like-minded sources on Facebook are prevalent but not polarizing Open

Brendan Nyhan, Jaime E. Settle, Emily Thorson, Magdalena Wojcieszak, Pablo Barberá , et al. · 2023

Many critics raise concerns about the prevalence of ‘echo chambers’ on social media and their potential role in increasing political polarization. However, the lack of available data and the challenges of conducting large-scale field exper…

Replication Data for: Strategies of Chinese State Media on Twitter Open

Yingjie Fan, Jennifer Pan, Jaymee Sheng · 2023

How do state-controlled broadcasters reach foreign publics to engage in public diplomacy in the era of social media? Previous research suggests that features unique to social media, such as the ability to engage in two-way communication wi…

Time is Money: Strategic Timing Games in Proof-of-Stake Protocols Open

Caspar Schwarz-Schilling, Fahad Saleh, Thomas Thiery, Jennifer Pan, Nihar B. Shah , et al. · 2023

We propose a model suggesting that honest-but-rational consensus participants may play timing games, and strategically delay their block proposal to optimize MEV capture, while still ensuring the proposal's timely inclusion in the canonica…

Disguised Repression: Targeting Opponents with Non-Political Crimes to Undermine Dissent Open

Jennifer Pan, Xu Xu, Yiqing Xu · 2023

Replication Data for: How Information Flows from the World to China Open

Jennifer Pan, Yingdan Lu, Jack Schaefer, Kunwoo Park, Jungseock Joo · 2022

Government censorship---internet shutdowns, blockages, firewalls---imposes significant barriers to the transnational flow of information despite the connective power of digital technologies. In this paper, we examine whether and how inform…

The digital repression of social movements, protest, and activism: A synthetic review Open

Jennifer Earl, Thomas V. Maher, Jennifer Pan · 2022

Repression research examines the causes and consequences of actions or policies that are meant to, or actually do, raise the costs of activism, protest, and/or social movement activity. The rise of digital and social media has brought subs…

The Pervasive Presence of Chinese Government Content on Douyin Trending Videos Open

Yingdan Lu, Jennifer Pan · 2022

As audiences have moved to digital media, so too have governments around the world. While previous research has focused on how authoritarian regimes employ strategies such as the use of fabricated accounts and content to boost their reach,…

Replication Data for: Does Ideology Influence Hiring in China? Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments Open

Tongtong Zhang, Jennifer Pan · 2021

China after Mao is typically characterized as a country where economic opportunities are based on merit instead of ideological conformity. However, the salience of ideology has grown under the rule of Xi Jinping. Using a large-scale resume…

Public Sentiment on Chinese Social Media during the Emergence of COVID19 Open

Yingdan Lu, Jennifer Pan, Yiqing Xu · 2021

When COVID-19 first emerged in China, there was speculation that the outbreak would trigger public anger and weaken the Chinese regime. By analyzing millions of social media posts from Sina Weibo made between December 2019 and February 202…

Replication Data for: How Government-Controlled Media Shifts Policy Attitudes through Framing Open

Jennifer Pan, Zijie Shao, Yiqing Xu · 2021

Research shows that government-controlled media is an effective tool for authoritarian regimes to shape public opinion. Does government-controlled media remain effective when it is required to support changes in positions that autocrats ta…

The Pervasive Presence of Chinese Government Content on Douyin Trending Videos Open

Yingdan Lu, Jennifer Pan · 2021

Jennifer Pan YOU? Author Swipe