IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/7pcjd.html

Academic Access to Social Media Data for the Study of Political Online Safety

Author

Listed:
  • Casas, Andreu

    (Royal Holloway, University of London)

  • Dagher, Georgia
  • O'Loughlin, Ben

Abstract

In this report we provide an overview of the kinds of data academics need in order to conduct independent research into political online safety matters on social media platforms, and the challenges they currently face. Additionally, we put forward ideas regarding novel governance structures that would enable high-quality independent research, while protecting users’ rights and data privacy, in the United Kingdom.

Suggested Citation

  • Casas, Andreu & Dagher, Georgia & O'Loughlin, Ben, 2025. "Academic Access to Social Media Data for the Study of Political Online Safety," SocArXiv 7pcjd, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:7pcjd
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/7pcjd
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/678918ad2d6c3513282f37f2/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/7pcjd?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hewitt, Luke & Broockman, David & Coppock, Alexander & Tappin, Ben M. & Slezak, James & Coffman, Valerie & Lubin, Nathaniel & Hamidian, Mohammad, 2024. "How Experiments Help Campaigns Persuade Voters: Evidence from a Large Archive of Campaigns’ Own Experiments," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 118(4), pages 2021-2039, November.
    2. Bond, Robert & Messing, Solomon, 2015. "Quantifying Social Media’s Political Space: Estimating Ideology from Publicly Revealed Preferences on Facebook," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 109(1), pages 62-78, February.
    3. Gregory Eady & Jonathan Nagler & Andy Guess & Jan Zilinsky & Joshua A. Tucker, 2019. "How Many People Live in Political Bubbles on Social Media? Evidence From Linked Survey and Twitter Data," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(1), pages 21582440198, February.
    4. Yannis Theocharis & Pablo Barberá & Zoltán Fazekas & Sebastian Adrian Popa, 2020. "The Dynamics of Political Incivility on Twitter," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(2), pages 21582440209, May.
    5. Luke Munn, 2020. "Angry by design: toxic communication and technical architectures," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 7(1), pages 1-11, December.
    6. Dobber, Tom & Ó Fathaigh, Ronan & Zuiderveen Borgesius, Frederik J., 2019. "The regulation of online political micro-targeting in Europe," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 8(4), pages 1-20.
    7. Brodeur, Abel & Esterling, Kevin & Ankel-Peters, Jörg & Bueno, Natália S. & Desposato, Scott & Dreber, Anna & Genovese, Federica & Green, Donald P. & Hepplewhite, Matthew & Hoces de la Guardia, Fernan, 2024. "Promoting Reproducibility and Replicability in Political Science," I4R Discussion Paper Series 100, The Institute for Replication (I4R).
    8. Philipp Knöpfle & Tim Schatto-Eckrodt, 2024. "The Challenges of Replicating Volatile Platform-Data Studies: Replicating Schatto-Eckrodt et al. (2020)," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 12.
    9. Mohsen Mosleh & Qi Yang & Tauhid Zaman & Gordon Pennycook & David G. Rand, 2024. "Differences in misinformation sharing can lead to politically asymmetric sanctions," Nature, Nature, vol. 634(8034), pages 609-616, October.
    10. Andrew C. Chang & Phillip Li, 2022. "Is Economics Research Replicable? Sixty Published Papers From Thirteen Journals Say “Often Notâ€," Critical Finance Review, now publishers, vol. 11(1), pages 185-206, February.
    11. Siegel, Alexandra A. & Nikitin, Evgenii & Barberá, Pablo & Sterling, Joanna & Pullen, Bethany & Bonneau, Richard & Nagler, Jonathan & Tucker, Joshua A., 2021. "Trumping Hate on Twitter? Online Hate Speech in the 2016 U.S. Election Campaign and its Aftermath," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 16(1), pages 71-104, January.
    12. Barberá, Pablo & Casas, Andreu & Nagler, Jonathan & Egan, Patrick J. & Bonneau, Richard & Jost, John T. & Tucker, Joshua A., 2019. "Who Leads? Who Follows? Measuring Issue Attention and Agenda Setting by Legislators and the Mass Public Using Social Media Data," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 113(4), pages 883-901, November.
    13. repec:cup:apsrev:v:113:y:2019:i:04:p:883-901_00 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Anna Dreber & Magnus Johannesson, 2025. "A framework for evaluating reproducibility and replicability in economics," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 63(2), pages 338-356, April.
    15. Levi Boxell & Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2024. "Cross-Country Trends in Affective Polarization," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(2), pages 557-565, March.
    16. Brittany I. Davidson & Darja Wischerath & Daniel Racek & Douglas A. Parry & Emily Godwin & Joanne Hinds & Dirk Linden & Jonathan F. Roscoe & Laura Ayravainen & Alicia G. Cork, 2023. "Platform-controlled social media APIs threaten open science," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(12), pages 2054-2057, December.
    17. Abel Brodeur & Nikolai Cook & Anthony Heyes, 2020. "Methods Matter: p-Hacking and Publication Bias in Causal Analysis in Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(11), pages 3634-3660, November.
    18. Miguel, E & Camerer, C & Casey, K & Cohen, J & Esterling, KM & Gerber, A & Glennerster, R & Green, DP & Humphreys, M & Imbens, G & Laitin, D & Madon, T & Nelson, L & Nosek, BA & Petersen, M & Sedlmayr, 2014. "Promoting Transparency in Social Science Research," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt0wt4q2q8, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    19. Hobolt, Sara B. & Leeper, Thomas J. & Tilley, James, 2021. "Divided by the Vote: Affective Polarization in the Wake of the Brexit Referendum," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(4), pages 1476-1493, October.
    20. Colin F. Camerer & Anna Dreber & Felix Holzmeister & Teck-Hua Ho & Jürgen Huber & Magnus Johannesson & Michael Kirchler & Gideon Nave & Brian A. Nosek & Thomas Pfeiffer & Adam Altmejd & Nick Buttrick , 2018. "Evaluating the replicability of social science experiments in Nature and Science between 2010 and 2015," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 2(9), pages 637-644, September.
    21. Azzimonti, Marina & Fernandes, Marcos, 2023. "Social media networks, fake news, and polarization," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    22. Paul Gertler & Sebastian Galiani & Mauricio Romero, 2018. "How to make replication the norm," Nature, Nature, vol. 554(7693), pages 417-419, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Balafoutas, Loukas & Celse, Jeremy & Karakostas, Alexandros & Umashev, Nicholas, 2025. "Incentives and the replication crisis in social sciences: A critical review of open science practices," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    2. Miloš Fišar & Ben Greiner & Christoph Huber & Elena Katok & Ali I. Ozkes, 2024. "Reproducibility in Management Science," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(3), pages 1343-1356, March.
    3. Brodeur, Abel & Esterling, Kevin & Ankel-Peters, Jörg & Bueno, Natália S & Desposato, Scott & Dreber, Anna & Genovese, Federica & Green, Donald P & Hepplewhite, Matthew & de la Guardia, Fernando Hoces, 2024. "Promoting Reproducibility and Replicability in Political Science," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt23n3n3dg, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    4. repec:osf:osfxxx:mydzv_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. So, Tony, 2020. "Classroom experiments as a replication device," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    6. Ferman, Bruno & Finamor, Lucas, 2025. "There must be an error here! Experimental evidence on coding errors' biases," I4R Discussion Paper Series 266, The Institute for Replication (I4R).
    7. Abel Brodeur & Scott Carrell & David Figlio & Lester Lusher, 2023. "Unpacking P-hacking and Publication Bias," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(11), pages 2974-3002, November.
    8. Edward Miguel, 2021. "Evidence on Research Transparency in Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(3), pages 193-214, Summer.
    9. Albert J. Menkveld & Anna Dreber & Felix Holzmeister & Juergen Huber & Magnus Johannesson & Michael Kirchler & Sebastian Neusüß & Michael Razen & Utz Weitzel & David Abad‐Díaz & Menachem (Meni) Abudy , 2024. "Nonstandard Errors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(3), pages 2339-2390, June.
      • Albert J. Menkveld & Anna Dreber & Félix Holzmeister & Juergen Huber & Magnus Johannesson & Michael Kirchler & Sebastian Neusüss & Michael Razen & Utz Weitzel & Gunther Capelle-Blancard, 2021. "Non-Standard Errors," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 21033, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
      • Menkveld, Albert J. & Dreber, Anna & Holzmeister, Felix & Huber, Juergen & Johannesson, Magnus & Kirchler, Michael & Neusüss, Sebastian & Razen, Michael & Weitzel, Utz & Abad-Díaz, David & Abudy, Mena, 2021. "Non-Standard Errors," Working Papers 2021:17, Lund University, Department of Economics.
      • Utz Weitzel & Michael Razen & Sebastian Neussüs & Michael Kirchler & Magnus Johannesson & Juergen Huber & Felix Holzmeister & Anna Dreber & Albert J. Menkveld & Javier Gil-Bazo, 2021. "Non-Standard Errors," Working Papers 1303, Barcelona School of Economics.
      • Menkveld, Albert J. & Dreber, Anna & Holzmeister, Felix & Huber, Jürgen & Johannesson, Magnus & Kirchler, Michael & Neusüss, Sebastian & Razen, Michael & Weitzel, Utz, 2021. "Non-standard errors," IWH Discussion Papers 11/2021, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
      • Albert J. Menkveld & Anna Dreber & Felix Holzmeister & Juergen Huber & Magnus Johannesson & Michael Kirchler & Sebastian Neussüs & Michael Razen & Utz Weitzel & Christian T. Brownlees & Javier Gil-Baz, 2021. "Non-standard errors," Economics Working Papers 1807, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
      • Albert J. et al. Menkveld, 2021. "Non-Standard Errors," CESifo Working Paper Series 9453, CESifo.
      • Albert J Menkveld & Anna Dreber & Felix Holzmeister & Juergen Huber & Magnus Johannesson & Michael Kirchler & Sebastian Neusüss & Michael Razen & Utz Weitzel & Gunther Capelle-Blancard & David Abad-Dí, 2021. "Non-Standard Errors," Post-Print halshs-03500882, HAL.
      • Francesco Franzoni & Roxana Mihet & Markus Leippold & Per Ostberg & Olivier Scaillet & Norman Schürhoff & Oksana Bashchenko & Nicola Mano & Michele Pelli, 2022. "Non-Standard Errors," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 22-09, Swiss Finance Institute.
      • Albert J. Menkveld & Anna Dreber & Felix Holzmeister & Juergen Huber & Magnus Johannesson & Michael Kirchler & Sebastian Neus ss & Michael Razen & Utz Weitzel & Edwin Baidoo & Michael Fr mmel & et al, 2021. "Non-Standard Errors," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 21/1032, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
      • Menkveld, Albert J. & Dreber, Anna & Holzmeister, Felix & Huber, Juergen & Johannesson, Magnus & Hasse, Jean-Baptiste & e.a.,, 2023. "Non-Standard Errors," LIDAM Reprints LFIN 2023002, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain Finance (LFIN).
      • Moinas, Sophie & Declerck, Fany & Menkveld, Albert J. & Dreber, Anna, 2023. "Non-Standard Errors," TSE Working Papers 23-1451, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
      • Menkveld, Albert J. & Dreber, Anna & Holzmeister, Felix & Huber, Juergen & Johannesson, Magnus & Kirchler, Michael & Neusüß, Sebastian & Razen, Michael & Weitzel, Utz & Abad-Díaz, David & Abudy, Menac, 2024. "Nonstandard errors," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 123002, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
      • Albert Menkveld & Anna Dreber & Felix Holzmeister & Juergen Huber & Magnus Johannesson & Michael Kirchler & Sebastian Neusüß & Michael Razen & Utz Weitzel & David Abad-Díaz & Tobias Adrian & Yacine Ai, 2024. "Nonstandard Errors," Post-Print hal-04676112, HAL.
      • Menkveld, A. & Dreber, A. & Holzmeister, F. & Huber, J. & Johannesson, M. & Kirchler, M. & Neusüss, S. & Razen, M. & Neusüss, S. & Neusüss, S., 2021. "Non-Standard Errors," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2182, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
      • Menkveld, Albert J. & Dreber, Anna & Holzmeister, Felix & Huber, Jürgen & Johannesson, Magnus & Kirchler, Michael & Neusüss, Sebastian & Razen, Michael & Weitzel, Utz, 2021. "Non-standard errors," SAFE Working Paper Series 327, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
      • Albert J. Menkveld & Anna Dreber & Felix Holzmeister & Jürgen Huber & Magnus Johannesson & Michael Kirchler & Sebastian Neusüss & Michael Razen & Utz Weitzel & David Abad-Dí­az & Menachem Abudy & Tobi, 2021. "Non-Standard Errors," Working Papers 2021-31, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
      • Albert Menkveld & Anna Dreber & Felix Holzmeister & Juergen Huber & Magnus Johannesson & Michael Kirchler & Sebastian Neusüß & Michael Razen & Utz Weitzel & David Abad-Díaz & Tobias Adrian & Yacine Ai, 2024. "Nonstandard Errors," Post-Print hal-05077550, HAL.
      • Gerardo Ferrara & Simon Jurkatis, 2021. "Non-standard errors," Bank of England working papers 955, Bank of England.
      • Albert Menkveld & Anna Dreber & Felix Holzmeister & Juergen Huber & Magnus Johannesson & Michael Kirchler & Sebastian Neusüß & Michael Razen & Utz Weitzel & David Abad-Díaz & Tobias Adrian & Yacine Ai, 2024. "Nonstandard Errors," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-05077550, HAL.
      • Ciril Bosch-Rosa & Bernhard Kassner, 2023. "Non-Standard Errors," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 385, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
      • Albert J Menkveld & Anna Dreber & Felix Holzmeister & Juergen Huber & Magnus Johannesson & Michael Kirchler & Sebastian Neusüss & Michael Razen & Utz Weitzel & Gunther Capelle-Blancard & David Abad-Dí, 2021. "Non-Standard Errors," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-03500882, HAL.
      • Wolff, Christian & Menkveld, Albert J. & Dreber, Anna & Holzmeister, Felix & Huber, Juergen & Johannesson, Magnus & Kirchler, Michael & Neusüess, Sebastian & Razen, Michael & Weitzel, Utz, 2021. "Non-Standard Errors," CEPR Discussion Papers 16751, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Campbell, Douglas & Brodeur, Abel & Dreber, Anna & Johannesson, Magnus & Kopecky, Joseph & Lusher, Lester & Tsoy, Nikita, 2024. "The Robustness Reproducibility of the American Economic Review," I4R Discussion Paper Series 124, The Institute for Replication (I4R).
    11. Hensel, Przemysław G., 2021. "Reproducibility and replicability crisis: How management compares to psychology and economics – A systematic review of literature," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 577-594.
    12. Brodeur, Abel & Valenta, David & Marcoci, Alexandru & Aparicio, Juan P. & Mikola, Derek & Barbarioli, Bruno & Alexander, Rohan & Deer, Lachlan & Stafford, Tom & Vilhuber, Lars & Bensch, Gunther & Gold, 2025. "Comparing Human-Only, AI-Assisted, and AI-Led Teams on Assessing Research Reproducibility in Quantitative Social Science," I4R Discussion Paper Series 195, The Institute for Replication (I4R).
    13. repec:osf:osfxxx:j43tn_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Brinkerink, Jasper & De Massis, Alfredo & Kellermanns, Franz, 2022. "One finding is no finding: Toward a replication culture in family business research," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 13(4).
    15. Vu, Patrick, 2024. "Why are replication rates so low?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 245(1).
    16. Francesco Giavazzi & Felix Iglhaut & Giacomo Lemoli & Gaia Rubera, 2020. "Terrorist Attacks, Cultural Incidents and the Vote for Radical Parties: Analyzing Text from Twitter," NBER Working Papers 26825, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Christophe Pérignon & Olivier Akmansoy & Christophe Hurlin & Anna Dreber & Felix Holzmeister & Juergen Huber & Magnus Johanneson & Michael Kirchler & Albert J Menkveld & Michael Razen & Utz Weitzel, 2022. "Reproducibility of Empirical Results: Evidence from 1,000 Tests in Finance," Working Papers hal-03810013, HAL.
    18. McWay, Ryan & Braaksma, Matthew, 2025. "The political consequences of resource scarcity: Targeted spending in a water-stressed democracy. A replication study of Mahadevan and Shenoy (Journal of Public Economics, 2023)," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    19. Pierluigi Conzo & Andrea Gallice & Juan S. Morales & Margaret Samahita & Laura K. Taylor, 2021. "Can Hearts Change Minds? Social media Endorsements and Policy Preferences," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 641, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    20. Tom L. Dudda & Lars Hornuf, 2025. "The Perks and Perils of Machine Learning in Business and Economic Research," CESifo Working Paper Series 11721, CESifo.
    21. Felix Chopra & Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Andreas Stegmann, 2024. "The Null Result Penalty," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(657), pages 193-219.
    22. Cantone, Giulio Giacomo, 2023. "The multiversal methodology as a remedy of the replication crisis," MetaArXiv kuhmz, Center for Open Science.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:7pcjd. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.