Researchers say the study of social media's large-scale societal impact should be treated as a “crisis discipline”, like climate science or conservation biology
One challenge is how little we know about the dangers. — Social media has drastically restructured … Tweets: @ct_bergstrom , @ct_bergstrom , @zittrain , @richggall , @bob_wachter , @philnobilejr , @groblewis , @mulvihill79 , @richggall , @ct_bergstrom , @zittrain , @11greengirl , @michaelbolton , @tnicholsmd , @andrewcollmus , @natesilver538 , @greglinden , @briandavidearp , @zittrain , @jbf1755 , @ct_bergstrom , @ct_bergstrom , @philipcball , @d_lofi , @keyne_unable , and @hkanji Tweets: Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom : 1. We have a new paper out in PNAS today, in which we address the harm wrought by dramatically restructuring human communication of the span of a decade, with no aim other than selling ads. It might be the most important paper of my career. https://www.pnas.org/... Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom : @NateSilver538 Nate, I'll pass that along to my coauthors on the paper Miguel Centano, Vice-Dean of Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, and Rachel Moran, who received her PhD last year from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC. Jonathan Zittrain / @zittrain : Here's a companion thread from the lead author. It's really interesting to see problems that have been approached from “nearby” domains - here, e.g., law, policy, science and technology studies, social science - intrude upon the agendas and imaginations of additional disciplines. https://twitter.com/... Rich Gall / @richggall : @zittrain @shiringhaffary @PNASNews This is important work, but the references to “conservation” and the fact that neither really talk about power makes me wonder how effective the domain can be in tackling the issues at hand - maybe I'm unfair, but is this just the academic equivalent of ~design thinking~? Bob Wachter / @bob_wachter : Important and chilling - both the paper and the thread. Given the mischief we've already seen from social networks, hard to see how this turns out well. As the paper says, “There is no viable hands-off approach.” https://twitter.com/... Phil Nobile Jr / @philnobilejr : I deleted Facebook 7 years ago. I was struggling with sobriety, my sister had recently died, and my relatives were super into posting morbid memorials & “angelversaries.” It drained me. I decided staying on FB was harmful. If a platform brings you nothing but misery, opt out! Rob Lewis / @groblewis : Timothy Egan laments how mean America has become, but IMO doesn't put enough blame on @Facebook: https://www.nytimes.com/... We had better figure out how to manage this unprecedented monster or it may kill us all: https://www.pnas.org/... Michael Mulvihill / @mulvihill79 : Thought-provoking paper on the corrosive effects of social media, although I think what the authors identify as a problem of scale/reach is more a combination of frictionless media and unaccountability. https://twitter.com/... Rich Gall / @richggall : @zittrain @shiringhaffary I'll admit I'm probably unfairly using design thinking as shorthand for SV solutionism! Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom : 4. The problem is that this enormous transformation has taken place not as a stewarded effort to improve information quality or to further human well-being, but more or less simply for the purpose of keeping people engaged online in order to sell ads. Jonathan Zittrain / @zittrain : @richggall @shiringhaffary Yea, I think it's hard for anyone to have a comprehensive picture; it may be that some of the hard scientists aren't used to opining about power or politics as much. The paper and interview cite Naomi Oreskes's work, though. And that's some casual shade on design thinking! Green Girl / @11greengirl : @voxdotcom This is so true. Social media is the *driver of the misinformation. The lies grow exponentially bc the algorithms are set up that way. To exploit outrage & hate. Yet humans control those algorithms. @Facebook has the capacity to uncouple the rage, but chooses not to. It's all $ Michael Bolton / @michaelbolton : This is a very impressive, important, and sobering thread. Off to the paper now. https://twitter.com/... Taylor Nichols / @tnicholsmd : The reasons for this are many, though one is directly related to the rise of social media and the immense power that social media has in society. This thread (and linked paper) by @CT_Bergstrom is an excellent summary and explainer and you all should read it: https://twitter.com/... Andrew Collmus / @andrewcollmus : Was there some time in the past where media was designed to facilitate the spread of reliable information? Media has always been created to sell ads. Sensationalism has always outperformed mundane realistic accounts of information https://twitter.com/... Nate Silver / @natesilver538 : I'm all for multidisciplinary work but this is a pretty simplistic view of how media works (not least the idea that *only now* has the business become advertising-driven) and this paper would have benefited from more input from experts in politics, communications and journalism. https://twitter.com/... Greg Linden / @greglinden : It would be nice if some hugely powerful company had the goal of improving information quality. I don't know, maybe “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful” or something like that. But no time for any of that, we got ads to sell! https://twitter.com/... Brian D. Earp / @briandavidearp : Why biologists like Carl Bergstrom are warning that social media is a risk to humanity https://www.vox.com/... Jonathan Zittrain / @zittrain : Thread from an evolutionary biologist who, along with scholars of ecology, anthropology, philosophy, and complex systems, is calling for the study of social media and its unpredictable worldwide effects to become a “crisis discipline.” Yes! An urgent, important summons. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Dr. Joanne Freeman / @jbf1755 : The headline doesn't do the piece justice. About the dire risks inherent in the spread of bad information. Very much worth a read. Why some biologists and ecologists think social media is a risk to humanity https://www.vox.com/... Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom : 17. I want to correct a misperception I'm seeing. Our message is not “ads are evil.” It's that social media etc. been designed largely to sell ads, which means it is not designed with care to facilitate the spread of reliable information, let alone improve human well-being. Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom : 6. It is difficult to overestimate the stakes. If these technologies so effectively sow mis- and disinformation worldwide, how we can hope to solve problems such as global warming, extinction, war, food security, pandemics? How can we prevent democracies from crumbling? Philip Ball / @philipcball : “We suggest that there is an urgent need for an equivalent of the Hippocratic oath for anyone studying or intervening into collective behavior.” This is quite an ask, but we shouldn't dismiss it just because not all would sign up. https://www.pnas.org/... @d_lofi : As Vox sums it: “academics should treat the study of technology's large-scale impact on society as a ‘crisis discipline.’” I totally agree. It's a compelling journal article. https://www.pnas.org/... Keyne Enys Rowe / @keyne_unable : It is so important that we stop talking about social media like some kind of trendy fad or weird thing, and start waking up to the fact that the most significant change ever to human inter-relation and communication is being driven for profit instead of for the good of humanity. https://twitter.com/... Hussein Kanji / @hkanji : Seventeen researchers who specialize in widely different fields, from climate science to philosophy, make the case that academics should treat the study of technology's large-scale impact on society as a “crisis discipline.” https://www.vox.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The PNAS paper by Carl T. Bergstrom and coauthors lands in a field already fighting about its own conclusions: some researchers find the fears about social media overstated while others warn about effects on individuals, and [[a:957972|The Verge argued The Social Dilemma stoked fear and outrage without an accurate view of how platforms work]]. Against that backdrop, Bergstrom brings a concrete indictment — his allegation that Facebook knowingly left up 167 million pieces of COVID-19 disinformation — to argue that uncertainty about harms is itself the emergency.
The paper also converges with a parallel strand of criticism: [[a:961603|the argument that Facebook criticism must move beyond content moderation toward inventing public cultural institutions]]. Treating platform-society research as a crisis discipline, like climate science or conservation biology, would give both strands a shared institutional frame — and make the platforms' own data the scarce resource.
First-order effects
- Facebook comes under renewed, evidence-specific pressure: Bergstrom's allegation that it left up 167 million known-false COVID-19 posts despite knowing better turns 'we need more research' into a charge against the company's own conduct.
- Researchers gain a named framework — crisis discipline — that recasts slow, inconclusive studies of social media harms not as academic caution but as a dangerous knowledge gap while platforms restructure society at scale.
Second-order effects
- The framing forces the field's internal split into the open: researchers covered elsewhere as doubting that social media is broadly bad for society now sit on the opposite side of a crisis-discipline consensus, sharpening debates over what counts as evidence.
- Data access becomes the battleground — a crisis discipline requires rapid, independent measurement of harm, which only Facebook, Twitter and their peers can enable, turning researcher access requests into a political demand rather than a courtesy.
Third-order effects
- If the climate-science template holds, platform governance shifts toward acting on incomplete evidence — precautionary regulation justified by the cost of waiting for certainty, with 'more research needed' losing its power as a delaying argument.
- Social media research institutionalizes: dedicated funding streams, journals, and training pipelines emerge around platform harms, building standing scientific infrastructure where today ad hoc studies and viral documentaries fill the void.
The trend: Platform-society research is consolidating from scattered, contested studies into a formalized, urgency-driven science whose pace is set by how much data the platforms release.