Sofia Gil-Clavel

🚨Deadline: October 25th

"I believe that science derives its authority from something more than mastering the pipeline from data generation to publication. Rather, it comes from interactions within a community of people trained to interrogate evidence and answer for the conclusions they draw from it."

Gonna end all my emails "No pressure, just curiosity" from now on

🚀 We’re hiring at the Societal Analytics Lab at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam! We’re looking for a Post-Doctoral Researcher / Research Engineer to join our team. If you’re passionate about research infrastructure, FAIR & Open Science, and interdisciplinary collaboration, this could be a great fit.

AI chatbot fraud: the ‘gift card’ subcription that may cost you dear

Are you looking for more than just a line on your resume? At the Societal Analytics Lab, we’re looking for ambitious, curious, and driven students/recent grads to join our Internship Program! 📍 Location: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam 🔗 All information here: societal-analytics.nl/services/int...

Next March 10th, we will be hosting the Film Club, a montly event to watch research-related movies and discuss them with pizza and drinks 😉 🍕 This time, we will be watching "The Thinking Game". 📍 Who can join? VU Amsterdam researchers. 📝 Register here: forms.office.com/e/AMhWei8365 See you there!

This is taking place on Monday with colleagues from the @univie.ac.at @anniewald.bsky.social @societal-analytics.nl @sof14g1l.bsky.social and The Atlas Social Media Listening Lab at @ufjschool.bsky.social @n8carp.bsky.social @jieunshin.bsky.social

Today I presented my work on "Climate Change narratives in Mexico" at @etmaal2026.bsky.social . Thanks everyone for the positive comments. I had a great time.

"The German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously defined the Enlightenment as 'man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.' Immaturity, he wrote, 'is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another'." #AI

"The sanctions have changed every aspect of his daily life. Guillou explained: 'All my accounts with American companies, such as Amazon, Airbnb, PayPal and others, have been closed.'"

"The biologist believes animals such as beavers, wolves and lynx should not be reintroduced without a system to deal with conflicts that inevitably arise. 'If you say ‘deal with it yourself’ that is when illegal shooting happens.'"

Highly recommended read about the politicisation of science in the US and how this will help the resurgence of eugenic ideology and scientific racism. “For the first time, there is a political appointee in the NIH communications operations” www.statnews.com/2025/12/18/t...

Come and learn what the Lab achieved during 2025. But hey, a celebration is not complete without some fun activities! So, we will also screen the movie “Coded Bias” and finalize the event with drinks. When: February 10th between 15:00 and 18:00 hrs. All info: societal-analytics.nl/events/20251...

The Call for Papers and Panels for #COMPTEXT2026 in Birmingham (23-25 April) is out; feel free to circulate: shorturl.at/gRg0p! Deadline: January 16!

'Winter hares in conversation' by UK contemporary printmaker Angela Harding #WomensArt #ArtAdvent

This is just so sad to see. The societal returns on "AI" investment are still minimal and solving made-up problems – while causing new ones. Just imagine all that money having gone into alternative/sustainable energy... But that just how it is.

Are you an academic working at FSW, @vuamsterdam.bsky.social ? Do you want to learn to use R for data managing, visualization, and analysis? Then, you may want to enroll to our R-Workshops. We only have 15 places. 👇🏽 All info here: societal-analytics.nl/events/20251...

I just got my work accepted for at @etmaal2026.bsky.social ! I've heard many good things about this conference. So. I'm very much looking forward to presenting "What shapes the #ClimateChange narrative in #Mexico? An exploration of #Facebook energy related ads".

In light of record submission rates and a large volume of AI-generated slop, SocArXiv recently implemented a policy requiring ORCIDs linked in the OSF profile of submitting authors, and narrowing our focus to social science subjects. Today we are taking two more steps: /1

After a long time in development, {traktok} #rstats is now finally on CRAN! Whether you have access to the Research API or just want to scrape some pages, traktok has you covered jbgruber.github.io/traktok/

Since last year, I have been planting local flowers in my neighborhood. 🌱🌻 It is so nice them bring life back. 🐞🐝🦋🪲 #GuerillaGardening

Thanks for the invitation! I’m looking forward to being part of this event. 🤩

I just finished reading #Supremacy by @parmy.bsky.social . A great book that summarizes the #AI race and the roles Demis Hassabis and Sam Altman play in it!

I received the results from this campaign. We collected 7500EUR to perform my research! 🙌🏽🤓 I am very happy that the community finds my research relevant. I will definitely keep you up-to-date on the progress and outputs that will come.

Have some free time this weekend? How about 2,500 hours? The recordings from posit::conf(2025) are now online! Learn about the innovations and insights from conf. We celebrated #RStats and #Python, with a focus on next-gen tools & #AI integration. See the info here: posit.co/blog/talks-a...

SAVE THE DATE! We are pleased to announce that the 8th COMPTEXT Conference will take place at the Institute of Data and AI (lnkd.in/ebN7za_Q) of the University of Birmingham, 23-25 April 2026, with @chrisguarnold.bsky.social serving as the lead local organiser. Call for Papers coming soon!

Ooh well, it seems students do not like my way of teaching... There are days when academia is tough.

My keynote about data science tools at posit::conf is now online! I originally meant it to be a talk about Positron, but as I was writing it, it took a left turn through the history of RStudio and into the philosophy of tool design & how to build stuff for people. www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGre...

How depended are societies to the internet? Check the last #LongRead from the @theguardian.com for an eye opening story:

Most people study what misinformation says. We decided to study how it looks. Using novel multi-modal AI methods, we study 17,848 posts by top climate denial accounts - and uncovered a new front in the misinformation war. Here's what it means 🧵 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Do LLMs represent the people they're supposed simulate or provide personalized assistance to? We review the current literature in our #ACL2025 Findings paper and investigating what researchers conclude about the demographic representativeness of LLMs: osf.io/preprints/so... 1/

Are you looking for a way to analyse textual data? @sof14g1l.bsky.social describes how the researchers can interact with AmCat, Amsterdam Content Analysis Toolkit #ODISSEI2025

Are you at the #ODISSEI conference? Then don't forget to pass by my poster, where I talk about what shapes the #ClimateChange narrative in #Mexico.

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

"For the sick, the anxious, the isolated and many other vulnerable people who may lack medical resources and attention, AI’s vast knowledge base, coupled with its affirming and empathetic tone, can make the bots feel like wise and comforting partners."

Nothing to see here? Well, this is a slow moving 🧵 for #skystorians and others about #eyeglasses of the past, about how to read in the past, where to buy eyeglasses, and how to do with them in general. The hashtag is #HowToDoWithGlassesInThePast Let's roll.

Yet again, we can't afford to let LLMs become a source of epistemic grounding for society.

Very glad to see this piece by the @nytimes.com on data center struggles from Mexico to Ireland: "Government support worldwide has helped tech firms build with little accountability, said Ana Valdivia, an Oxford University lecturer studying data center development." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/t...