Claes de Vreese

Immensely grateful and overwhelmed to receive the 2026 Stevin Prize at a deeply personal and festive award ceremony. Awkward to be on the podium alone while all the work is genuine #TeamWork ❤️ 🙏🏻 😊 #gratitude @algosoc.org @aimediademlab.bsky.social @ascor.bsky.social @uva.nl @uva-fmg.bsky.social

AI and democracy are intrinsically linked. Mostly in undesirable ways. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

AI generated fear campaign by Netanyahu in Israel’s election. In the EU such AI use would need to be labeled and identified as AI generated.

AI and democracy are intrinsically linked. Mostly in undesirable ways. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

How do you recognise information suppression, and how should you respond? Check out the toolkit for countering information suppression developed by our ARM project. The toolkit is designed for civil society, researchers, policy actors, and anyone who encounters attempts to suppress information.

The paths of the rise and decline of democracy is not linear. Voters matter. 🇭🇺 🇷🇸 🇧🇷

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We often don't know which data, media sources or analytical tools already exist, let alone whether we can access, share the access, and thus make the data reusable. In our new open-access paper, we explain how @medem.bsky.social aims to change that. 🧵

The International Criminal Court and its officials have been awarded the European Parliament's 2026 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. Learn more about the laureate here: link.europa.eu/rVBvTR

Today, a judge in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $25 billion for misleading users on data privacy and a range of other statements that a jury deemed deceptive (and willfully so). Last month I broke down the jury's determinations on each of the questions posed to it:

Meta fined 25 billion US$ for deceiving users. “The takeaway from this will be that consumer protection laws will be the way to hold tech companies accountable” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/21/t...

Hello, we’re the Political Quarterly. 👋 Every day, we share articles from our reflective, academically rigorous journal in short formats you can read in less than 10 minutes. Follow us if you want to stay informed.

Whether or not he actually did this, it is a huge problem of disproportional power distribution that anyone one individual has the power to do it. www.wsj.com/world/ukrain...

Check out this 🧵 for a comprehensive overview of what’s happening at @ddc-sdu.bsky.social Thanks @curdknupfer.bsky.social for curating 😊

Twice a year, the Digital Democracy Centre sneaks away from busy university life to Nyborg in order to share updates on existing projects and kick off new ones. Here‘s @claesdevreese.bsky.social welcoming the participants to get us started. Check out the 🧵 below for insights and updates…

Follow @lenafrescamente.bsky.social for live coverage of our @ddc-sdu.bsky.social retreat ⬇️

Over Facebook: ‘We zijn twee keer zo groot als de grootste overheid op aarde. We zijn hier post-overheid.’ Uit de film The Social Reckoning. Ik sprak met @nrc.nl over de omslag in publieke opinie over big tech en over de concentratie van geld, macht en tech. www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2026/...

The use of AI in political ads is not evenly distributed: “More than 80 percent of the ads were produced by Republican campaigns or Republican-aligned political action committees” #midterms #AI #ads $137 Million in A.I.-Generated Ads Flood the Midterms www.nytimes.com/2026/10/16/u...

The use of AI in political ads is not evenly distributed: “More than 80 percent of the ads were produced by Republican campaigns or Republican-aligned political action committees” #midterms #AI #ads $137 Million in A.I.-Generated Ads Flood the Midterms www.nytimes.com/2026/10/16/u...

Big, with @noupside.bsky.social: It turns out that the majority of Community Notes published on X aren’t just AI-generated, they’re AI-generated by X itself! Renée and I discuss how this happened and what it might take to course correct a program we — despite everything — continue to see value in.

Apparently Meta shoved a provision in its business account TOS saying that continued use of the platforms gives Meta license to scrape your site. www.niemanlab.org/2026/10/meta...

Jeg skrev i sidste uge om, at sponsorer trak sig fra desinformationskonferencen #Disinfo2026 arrangeret af @disinfo.eu. Dette skete angiveligt efter pres fra USA, fordi USA blev behandlet som en påvirkningsaktør. I dag uddyber jeg på @olfi.bsky.social en sag, der handler om mere end sponsorater:

The Dutch Consumer Protection Organisation takes Meta to court over it’s camera glasses 🕶️ privacy violations and misuse if data. Case is heard November 26. www.consumentenbond.nl/nieuws/2026/...

About the EU multi year budget currently being negotiated, the EU can do one of two things: 1️⃣It can invest in science and research and in initiatives to bolster democracy. And see a huge return on investment, both economically and societally. 2️⃣Or it can cut funding and experience the consequences.

The higher education sector significantly underestimates the appetite and aggression behind cherry-picked rage-bait anti-science campaigns. Those who do not understand this playbook risk being “scalped” next. With @profsanderlinden.bsky.social www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/bewa...

About the EU multi year budget currently being negotiated, the EU can do one of two things: 1️⃣It can invest in science and research and in initiatives to bolster democracy. And see a huge return on investment, both economically and societally. 2️⃣Or it can cut funding and experience the consequences.

People are using chatbots for political information. The politics usage is diverse ⬇️ This data is based on Claude, comes from Anthropic which acknowledges the challenge to avoid that “Claude isn’t used to undermine the democratic process” #midterms www.anthropic.com/news/2026-us...

The amount of (real, active) users on Truth Social is only partially relevant as long as Trump has a platform where his direct messages are amplified on other platforms (like X) and in news media. For that amplification effect, the number of platform users matters less.

Het was een prachtige belofte: Twitter zou zorgen voor de democratisering van het publieke debat. Nu het platform is verworden tot een online beerput in handen van een techmiljardair, is de vraag: hoe creëren we betere sociale media? Vier lessen. 👉 www.groene.nl/artikel/op-z...

“Druk vanuit de politiek en intimidatie op sociale media zorgen ervoor dat wetenschappers zich minder vrij voelen. „Je ziet nu de normalisering van een bepaalde minachting van universiteiten”” www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2026/...

Congratulations to @claesdevreese.bsky.social on receiving the Stevin prize! 🏆 One priority for the €1.5M is investing in new generations through student thesis grants, paving the way for continued societal impact in the future. ➡️Read our interview for more on his outlook: tinyurl.com/2e6urrrh

🚨JOBS: Information influence campaigns are at the center of hybrid conflicts. As part of a new initiative on Hybrid War and Democracy that I lead at @d-ias.bsky.social, there are openings at post-doc and assistant professor (tenure track) levels. 🗓️: DL Nov 23 Share 🫶 🧵 www.sdu.dk/en/forskning...

Yeah, about that strategy ….”Another tactic could be to pressure big social media companies to moderate disinformation on their platforms” Not. Very. Likely. To. Work! www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...

'Are EU Kidding Me?', my critique of the EU KIDS Act, the EC's chaotic social media ban, is now forthcoming in the excellent Georgetown Law Technology Review. It's updated w/ some extra bits here files.michae.lv/papers/veale... (You can also respond to the consultation: ec.europa.eu/info/law/bet...)

Super excited to see this article in print in the APSR: 📚 “Public Service Decline and Support for the Populist Right: Evidence from England’s National Health Service” - with the brilliant @zachdickson.bsky.social @catherinedevries.bsky.social @simonecremaschi.bsky.social doi.org/10.1017/S000...

Doing a PhD in Denmark pays off. Both intellectually and financially ... Source: @nature.com @academic-chatter.bsky.social #academicsky #dkforsk

Doing a PhD in Denmark pays off. Both intellectually and financially ... Source: @nature.com @academic-chatter.bsky.social #academicsky #dkforsk

The "first-daughter effect" found in many Western countries also appears in Japan. Using survey data from 2000 to 2018, Chiba & Ono demonstrate that raising daughters can reshape core political attitudes among Japanese fathers. Read now: doi.org/10.1093/poq/...

Staggering 💵 amount. Read the final sentence: “The $276 million figure is, of course, just what is publicly known. Mr. Musk has also made some seven-figure donations to support midterm candidates through groups that are not required to disclose their donors” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/12/u...

🚨🚨🚨Publication alert: We can't really tell what is real and what is AI. Our just published study shows that most people struggle to detect AI-generated images. We are approximately as good as ... chance... @madshovethy.bsky.social led a team effort ⬇️ #OpenAccess 🧵 [1/4] doi.org/10.1177/2056...

Today, we will adopt nearly 1,600 new sanctions listings targeting Russia’s military-industrial complex. This will be the single largest expansion of our sanctions list since Russia started its war.