Politicized Scientists: Credibility cost of political expression on Twitter

As social media is increasingly popular, we examine the reputational costs of its increased centrality among academics. Analyzing posts of 98,000 scientists on Twitter (2016–2022) reveals substantial and varied political discourse. We assess the impact of such online political expression with online experiments on a representative sample of 3,700 U.S. respondents and 135 journalists who rate vignettes of synthetic academic profiles with varied political affiliations. Politically neutral scientists are viewed as the most credible. Strikingly, on both the ’left’ and ’right’ sides of politically neutral, there is a monotonic penalty for scientists displaying political affiliations: the stronger their posts, the less credible their profile and research are perceived, and the lower the public’s will¬ingness to read their content, especially among oppositely aligned respondents. A survey of 128 scientists shows awareness of this penalty and a consensus on avoiding political expression outside their expertise.