TY - RPRT A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Papoutsi, Myrto A1 - Nowak, Holger T1 - Ein Jahr digitale Kontaktpersonennachverfolgung mit der Corona-Warn-App BT - Nutzung – Popularität – Verständnis N2 - Nachdem es zwischenzeitlich ruhig um die Corona-Warn-App geworden war, nahm die Diskussion um digitale Kontaktpersonennachverfolgung im Frühjahr 2021 wieder Fahrt auf. Die Corona-Warn-App wurde mit lange erwarteten Zusatzfeatures zur Eventregistrierung und Erfassung von Schnelltestergebnissen ausgestattet, während die Luca-App aufgrund von Sicherheitslücken und Datenschutzmängeln zunehmend in die Kritik geriet. In unserem Bericht dokumentieren wir, wie populär diese Apps mittlerweile in der deutschen Bevölkerung sind. Nach wie vor gilt: Für die Wirksamkeit dieser Technologien ist die breitflächige Nutzung in der Bevölkerung entscheidend. In unserer Erhebung, einem Smartphone-basierten Nutzertracking, das zwischen dem 19. Mai und 01. Juni 2021 durchgeführt wurde, zeigt sich nach wie vor deutliche Unterschiede in der Nutzung der beiden bekanntesten Apps – Corona-Warn-App und Luca-App. Im Vergleich zur vorherigen Befragung (März/April 2021) sind jedoch einige Verschiebungen beobachtbar: Die Luca-App ist bekannter geworden, gleichzeitig steigt die Sorge um den Datenschutz der App allenfalls leicht an. Bei vielen Befragten besteht nach wie vor große Unklarheit über die Unterschiede in Funktionsweise und Zweck dieser Apps. Y1 - 2021 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-39994 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-3999 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - BarberÁ, Pablo A1 - Guess, Andrew M. A1 - Yang, JungHwan T1 - Do Online Voter Guides Empower Citizens? Evidence from a Field Experiment with Digital Trace Data JF - Public Opinion Quarterly N2 - Voting Advice Applications (VAAs), which provide citizens with information on the party that best represents their political preferences, are often cited as evidence of the empowering capabilities of digital tools. Aside from the informational benefits of these voter guides, observational studies have suggested a strong effect on political participation and vote choice. However, existing impact evaluations have been limited by a reliance on convenience samples, lack of random assignment, or both. This raises questions about self-selection and the precise mechanisms underlying how voters learn about politics. Here, we provide evidence from a field experiment with survey outcomes conducted with a sample of over 1,000 German citizens in the 2017 federal election campaign. Using linked panel survey and digital trace data combined with a randomized encouragement to complete a VAA, we assess respondents’ compliance with treatment and observe how the use of this tool affects political behavior, attitudes, media consumption, political knowledge, and even social media activity. Our findings reveal that the overwhelming consensus in favor of positive effects on turnout and vote choice should be treated with caution, as we find no such effects. Rather, the actual virtue of VAAs in a complex online information environment lies in increasing knowledge about parties’ positions on issues—exactly the kind of information these tools were designed to provide. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfaa037 VL - 84 IS - 3 SP - 675 EP - 698 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Watts, Nick A1 - Amann, Markus T1 - The 2020 report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: responding to converging crises JF - The Lancet Y1 - 2021 VL - 397 IS - 10269 SP - 129 EP - 170 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Guess, Andrew M. A1 - Barberá, Pablo A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Yang, JungHwan ED - Bail, Christopher Andrew T1 - The consequences of online partisan media JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences N2 - What role do ideologically extreme media play in the polarization of society? Here we report results from a randomized longitudinal field experiment embedded in a nationally representative online panel survey (N = 1,037) in which participants were incentivized to change their browser default settings and social media following patterns, boosting the likelihood of encountering news with either a left-leaning (HuffPost) or right-leaning (Fox News) slant during the 2018 US midterm election campaign. Data on ≈ 19 million web visits by respondents indicate that resulting changes in news consumption persisted for at least 8 wk. Greater exposure to partisan news can cause immediate but short-lived increases in website visits and knowledge of recent events. After adjusting for multiple comparisons, however, we find little evidence of a direct impact on opinions or affect. Still, results from later survey waves suggest that both treatments produce a lasting and meaningful decrease in trust in the mainstream media up to 1 y later. Consistent with the minimal-effects tradition, direct consequences of online partisan media are limited, although our findings raise questions about the possibility of subtle, cumulative dynamics. The combination of experimentation and computational social science techniques illustrates a powerful approach for studying the long-term consequences of exposure to partisan news. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2013464118 VL - 118 IS - 14 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Göbel, Sascha A1 - Munzert, Simon T1 - The Comparative Legislators Database T2 - SocArXiv Papers N2 - Knowledge about political representatives' behavior is crucial for a deeper understanding of politics and policy-making processes. Yet resources on legislative elites are scattered, often specialized, limited in scope or not always accessible. This article introduces the Comparative Legislators Database (CLD), which joins micro-data collection efforts on open-collaboration platforms and other sources, and integrates with renowned political science datasets. The CLD includes political, sociodemographic, career, online presence, public attention, and visual information for over 45,000 contemporary and historical politicians from ten countries. The authors provide a straightforward and open-source interface to the database through an R package, offering targeted, fast and analysis-ready access in formats familiar to social scientists and standardized across time and space. The data is verified against human-coded datasets, and its use for investigating legislator prominence and turnover is illustrated. The CLD contributes to a central hub for versatile information about legislators and their behavior, supporting individual-level comparative research over long periods. KW - comparative KW - Crowdsourcing KW - dataset Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/kapfq ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Jankin, Slava A1 - et al., T1 - The 2021 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: code red for a healthy future JF - The Lancet N2 - The Lancet Countdown is an international collaboration that independently monitors the health consequences of a changing climate. Publishing updated, new, and improved indicators each year, the Lancet Countdown represents the consensus of leading researchers from 43 academic institutions and UN agencies. The 44 indicators of this report expose an unabated rise in the health impacts of climate change and the current health consequences of the delayed and inconsistent response of countries around the globe—providing a clear imperative for accelerated action that puts the health of people and planet above all else. The 2021 report coincides with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26), at which countries are facing pressure to realise the ambition of the Paris Agreement to keep the global average temperature rise to 1·5°C and to mobilise the financial resources required for all countries to have an effective climate response. These negotiations unfold in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic—a global health crisis that has claimed millions of lives, affected livelihoods and communities around the globe, and exposed deep fissures and inequities in the world’s capacity to cope with, and respond to, health emergencies. Yet, in its response to both crises, the world is faced with an unprecedented opportunity to ensure a healthy future for all. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)01787-6 SP - 1619 EP - 1662 ET - 10311 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gschwend, Thomas A1 - Müller, Klara A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Neunhoeffer, Marcel A1 - Stoetzer, Lukas T1 - The Zweitstimme Model: A Dynamic Forecast of the 2021 German Federal Election JF - PS: Political Science & Politics Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096521000913 VL - 55 IS - 1 SP - 85 EP - 90 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Selb, Peter T1 - Can we directly survey adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions? Evidence from a list experiment conducted in Germany during the early Corona pandemic. JF - Survey Research Methods N2 - Self-reports of adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions in surveys may be subject to social desirability bias. Existing questioning techniques to reduce bias are rarely used to monitor adherence. We conducted a list experiment to elicit truthful answers to the question whether respondents met friends or acquaintances and thus disregarded the social distancing norm. Our empirical findings are mixed. Using the list experiment, we estimate the prevalence of non-compliant behavior at 28%, whereas the estimate from a direct question is 22%. However, a more permissively phrased direct question included later in the survey yields an estimate of 47%. All three estimates vary consistently across social groups. Interestingly, only the list experiment reveals somewhat higher non-compliance rates among the highly educated compared to those with lower education, yet the variance of the list estimates is considerably higher. We conclude that the list experiment compared unfavorably to simpler direct measurements in our case. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.18148/srm/2020.v14i2.7759 VL - 14 IS - 2 SP - 205 EP - 209 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Neunhoeffer, Marcel A1 - Gschwend, Thomas A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Stoetzer, Lukas F. T1 - Ein Ansatz zur Vorhersage der Erststimmenanteile bei Bundestagswahlen JF - Politische Vierteljahresschrift N2 - Almost half of the total seats in the German Bundestag are awarded through first-past-the post elections at the electoral-district level. However, many election forecasting models do not consider this. In this paper we present an approach to predicting the candidate-vote shares at the district level for the German Federal Elections. To that end, we combine the national-level election prediction model from zweitstimme.org with two district-level prediction models, a linear regression and an artificial neural network, that both use the same candidate and district characteristics for their predictions. All data in our approach are publicly available prior to the respective election; thus, our model yields real forecasts. The model is therefore able to provide valuable information to running candidates and the interested public in future elections. Moreover, our prediction results are also relevant for substantive research: with the aid of the resulting odds of winning, better measures can be created to characterize the competitiveness of an electoral district and the expected closeness of electoral-district elections, which can influence political behaviour. Furthermore, the prediction allows empirical statements to be made about the expected size of the Bundestag as well as the composition of its personnel. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11615-019-00216-3 VL - 61 SP - 111 EP - 130 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Watts, Nick A1 - Jankin, Slava A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Amann, Markus A1 - Arnell, Nigel A1 - Ayeb-Karlsson, Sonja A1 - Beagley, Jessica A1 - Belesova, Kristine A1 - Boykoff, Maxwell A1 - Byass, Peter A1 - Cai, Wenjia A1 - Campbell-Lendrum, Diarmid A1 - Capstick, Stuart A1 - Chambers, Jonathan A1 - Coleman, Samantha A1 - Dalin, Carole A1 - Daly, Meaghan A1 - Dasandi, Niheer T1 - The 2020 report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: responding to converging crises JF - The Lancet N2 - The world has already warmed by more than 1.2C compared with preindustrial levels, resulting in profound, immediate, and rapidly worsening health effects, and moving dangerously close to the agreed limit of maintaining temperatures “well below 2C”. These health impacts are seen on every continent, with the ongoing spread of dengue virus across South America, the cardiovascular and respiratory effects of record heatwaves and wildfires in Australia, western North America, and western Europe, and the undernutrition and mental health effects of floods and droughts in China, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and South Africa. In the long term, climate change threatens the very foundations of human health and wellbeing, with the Global Risks Report registering climate change as one of the five most damaging or probable global risks every year for the past decade. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32290-X VL - 397 IS - 10269 SP - 129 EP - 170 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Erfort, Cornelius A1 - Stoetzer, Lukas F. A1 - Gschwend, Thomas A1 - Koch, Elias A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Rajski, Hannah T1 - The Zweitstimme Forecast for the German Federal Election 2025: Coalition Majorities and Vacant Districts JF - PS: Political Science & Politics Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096525000150 SN - 1049-0965 SP - 1 EP - 12 PB - Cambridge University Press (CUP) ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Ramirez-Ruiz, Sebastian A1 - Çalı, Başak A1 - Stoetzer, Lukas F. A1 - Gohdes, Anita R. A1 - Lowe, Will T1 - Prioritization preferences for COVID-19 vaccination are consistent across five countries JF - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications N2 - Vaccination against COVID-19 is making progress globally, but vaccine doses remain a rare commodity in many parts of the world. New virus variants require vaccines to be updated, hampering the availability of effective vaccines. Policymakers have defined criteria to regulate who gets priority access to the vaccination, such as age, health complications, or those who hold system-relevant jobs. But how does the public think about vaccine allocation? To explore those preferences, we surveyed respondents in Brazil, Germany, Italy, Poland, and the United States from September to December of 2020 using ranking and forced-choice tasks. We find that public preferences are consistent with expert guidelines prioritizing health-care workers and people with medical preconditions. However, the public also considers those signing up early for vaccination and citizens of the country to be more deserving than later-comers and non-citizens. These results hold across measures, countries, and socio-demographic subgroups. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01392-1 VL - 9 IS - 439 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Ramirez-Ruiz, Sebastian A1 - Barberá, Pablo A1 - Guess, Andrew M. A1 - Yang, JungHwan T1 - Who’s cheating on your survey? A detection approach with digital trace data JF - Political Science Research and Methods N2 - In this note, we provide direct evidence of cheating in online assessments of political knowledge. We combine survey responses with web tracking data of a German and a US online panel to assess whether people turn to external sources for answers. We observe item-level prevalence rates of cheating that range from 0 to 12 percent depending on question type and difficulty, and find that 23 percent of respondents engage in cheating at least once across waves. In the US panel, which employed a commitment pledge, we observe cheating behavior among less than 1 percent of respondents. We find robust respondent- and item-level characteristics associated with cheating. However, item-level instances of cheating are rare events; as such, they are difficult to predict and correct for without tracking data. Even so, our analyses comparing naive and cheating-corrected measures of political knowledge provide evidence that cheating does not substantially distort inferences. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2022.42 SP - 1 EP - 9 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Ramirez-Ruiz, Sebastian T1 - Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Voting Advice Applications JF - Political Communication N2 - We review the influence of voting advice applications (VAAs) on three core outcomes: turnout, vote choice, and issue knowledge. In a meta-analysis of 55 effects reported in 22 studies, comprising 73,673 participants in 9 countries, we find strong evidence for positive effects of VAA usage on reported turnout (OR = 1.87; 95% CI = [1.50, 2.33]) and vote choice (OR = 1.44; 95% CI = [1.16, 1.78]) as well as modest evidence on knowledge increase (partial correlation = 0.09; 95% CI = [−0.01, 0.18]). At the same time, we observe large heterogeneity in effect sizes, for which study design turns out to be a key driver. Effects are substantively weaker in causally more rigorous experimental studies. We highlight the need for more well-powered experimental research as well as studies focusing on the acquisition of knowledge in VAA usage. KW - Meta-analysis KW - VAA KW - voting advice application Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2020.1843572 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Papoutsi, Myrto A1 - Nowak, Holger T1 - Nutzung von digitalen Tools zur Unterstützung von COVID-19-Kontaktverfolgung BT - Wie populär sind Corona-Warn-App und Luca-App in der dritten Pandemiewelle? N2 - In der dritten Welle der Corona-Pandemie kann der Corona-Warn-App zur Unterstützung der COVID-19-Kontaktnachverfolgung eine wichtige Rolle zukommen, um Übertragungen der Krankheit einzudämmen. Darüber hinaus wird zunehmend über den Einsatz von Check-in-Apps diskutiert, die die Registrierung von Besuchen bestimmter Orte mittels QR-Codes ermöglichen. Für die Effektivität dieser Technologien ist jedoch die breitflächige Nutzung in der Bevölkerung entscheidend. In unserer Erhebung zeigen sich deutliche Unterschiede in der Nutzung der beiden bekanntesten Apps – Corona-Warn-App und Luca-App. Gleichzeitig wird sichtbar, in welchen Teilen der Bevölkerung die Nutzung noch ausgebaut werden könnte. Ein Großteil der Nicht-Nutzer zweifelt nach wie vor an der Effektivität der Apps, hat Datenschutzbedenken oder fühlt sich über die Lösungen nicht gut genug informiert. Die Ergebnisse basieren auf einer Befragung und Smartphone-basiertem Nutzertracking, die zwischen dem 24. März. und 6. April 2021 durchgeführt wurde. Y1 - 2021 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-38304 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-3830 ET - Studienbericht - 22. April 2021 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Selb, Peter A1 - Gohdes, Anita R. A1 - Stoetzer, Lukas F. A1 - Lowe, Will T1 - Tracking and Promoting Usage of a COVID-19 Contact Tracing App. JF - Nature Human Behavior N2 - Digital contact tracing apps have been introduced globally as an instrument to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, privacy by design impedes both the evaluation of these tools and the deployment of evidence-based interventions to stimulate uptake. We combine an online panel survey with mobile tracking data to measure the actual usage of Germany’s official contact tracing app and reveal higher uptake rates among respondents with an increased risk of severe illness, but lower rates among those with a heightened risk of exposure to COVID-19. Using a randomized intervention, we show that informative and motivational video messages have very limited effect on uptake. However, findings from a second intervention suggest that even small monetary incentives can strongly increase uptake and help make digital contact tracing a more effective tool. Y1 - 2021 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/2397-3374 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-01044-x IS - 5 SP - 247 EP - 255 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Helbling, Marc A1 - Maxwell, Rahsaan A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Traunmüller, Richard T1 - The importance of citizenship for deserving COVID-19 treatment JF - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications N2 - Immigrant non-citizens are often considered less deserving than citizens of welfare and other public services. The logic is that valuable and scarce public resources must be limited somehow, and the club of citizens is one way of drawing a boundary. In this paper, we examine how far that boundary extends, by analyzing the extent to which Germans prioritize citizens over non-citizens for access to life-saving healthcare. We implement a conjoint experiment to elicit preferences in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The data were collected between April 2020 and March 2021, in 23 waves of an online rolling crosssectional survey with roughly 17,000 respondents. Our main finding is that citizens are viewed as more deserving of healthcare than non-citizen immigrants, a relationship that is sizeable and robust. Our findings have implications for debates about social boundaries and how to allocate resources in Western Europe. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01311-4 VL - 9 IS - 302 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Romanello, Marina A1 - Di Napoli, Claudia A1 - Drummond, Paul A1 - Green, Carole A1 - Kennard, Harry A1 - Lampard, Pete A1 - Scamman, Daniel A1 - Arnell, Nigel A1 - Ayeb-Karlsson, Sonja A1 - Berrang Ford, Lea A1 - Belesova, Kristine A1 - Bowen, Kathryn A1 - Cai, Wenjia A1 - Callaghan, Max A1 - Campbell-Lendrum, Diarmid A1 - Chambers, Jonathan A1 - Daalen, Kim R van A1 - Dalin, Carole A1 - Dasandi, Niheer A1 - Dasgupta, Shouro A1 - Davies, Michael A1 - Dominguez-Salas, Paula A1 - Dubrow, Robert A1 - Ebi, Kristie L A1 - Eckelman, Matthew A1 - Ekins, Paul A1 - Escobar, Luis E A1 - Georgeson, Lucien A1 - Graham, Hilary A1 - Gunther, Samuel H A1 - Hamilton, Ian A1 - Hang, Yun A1 - Hänninen, Risto A1 - Hartinger, Stella A1 - He, Kehan A1 - Hess, Jeremy J A1 - Hsu, Shih-Che A1 - Jankin, Slava A1 - Jamart, Louis A1 - Jay, Ollie A1 - Kelman, Ilan A1 - Kiesewetter, Gregor A1 - Kinney, Patrick A1 - Kjellstrom, Tord A1 - Kniveton, Dominic A1 - Lee, Jason K W A1 - Lemke, Bruno A1 - Liu, Zhao A1 - Lott, Melissa A1 - Lotto Batista, Martin A1 - Lowe, Rachel A1 - MacGuire, Frances A1 - Sewe, Maquins Odhiambo A1 - Martinez-Urtaza, Jaime A1 - Maslin, Mark A1 - McAllister, Lucy A1 - McGushin, Alice A1 - McMichael, Celia A1 - Mi, Zhifu A1 - Milner, James A1 - Minor, Kelton A1 - Minx, Jan C A1 - Mohajeri, Nahid A1 - Moradi-Lakeh, Maziar A1 - Morrissey, Karyn A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Murray, Kris A A1 - Neville, Tara A1 - Nilsson, Maria A1 - Obradovich, Nick A1 - O'Hare, Megan B A1 - Oreszczyn, Tadj A1 - Otto, Matthias A1 - Owfi, Fereidoon A1 - Pearman, Olivia A1 - Rabbaniha, Mahnaz A1 - Robinson, Elizabeth J Z A1 - Rocklöv, Joacim A1 - Salas, Renee N A1 - Semenza, Jan C A1 - Sherman, Jodi D A1 - Shi, Liuhua A1 - Shumake-Guillemot, Joy A1 - Silbert, Grant A1 - Sofiev, Mikhail A1 - Springmann, Marco A1 - Stowell, Jennifer A1 - Tabatabaei, Meisam A1 - Taylor, Jonathon A1 - Triñanes, Joaquin A1 - Wagner, Fabian A1 - Wilkinson, Paul A1 - Winning, Matthew A1 - Yglesias-González, Marisol A1 - Zhang, Shihui A1 - Gong, Peng A1 - Montgomery, Hugh A1 - Costello, Anthony T1 - The 2022 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: health at the mercy of fossil fuels JF - The Lancet Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)01540-9 VL - 400 IS - 10363 SP - 1619 EP - 1654 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stoetzer, Lukas F. A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Lowe, Will A1 - Çalı, Başak A1 - Gohdes, Anita R. A1 - Helbling, Marc A1 - Maxwell, Rahsaan A1 - Traunmüller, Richard T1 - Affective partisan polarization and moral dilemmas during the COVID-19 pandemic JF - Political Science Research and Methods N2 - Recent scholarship on affective polarization documents partisan animosity in people's everyday lives. But does partisan dislike go so far as to deny fundamental rights? We study this question through a moral dilemma that gained notoriety during the COVID-19 pandemic: triage decisions on the allocation of intensive medical care. Using a conjoint experiment in five countries we analyze the influence of patients’ partisanship next to commonly discussed factors determining access to intensive medical care. We find that while participants’ choices are consistent with a utilitarian heuristic, revealed partisanship influences decisions across most countries. Supporters of left or right political camps are more likely to withhold support from partisan opponents. Our findings offer comparative evidence on affective polarization in non-political contexts. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2022.13 SP - 1 EP - 8 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Darius, Philipp A1 - Stockmann, Daniela A1 - Bryson, Joanna A1 - Cingolani, Luciana A1 - Griffin, Rachel A1 - Hammerschmid, Gerhard A1 - Kupi, Maximilian A1 - Mones, Haytham A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Riordan, Rónán A1 - Stockreiter, Simona T1 - Implementing Data Access of the Digital Services Act: Collaboration of European Digital Service Coordinators and Researchers in Building Strong Oversight over Social Media Platforms N2 - The EU Digital Service Acts signals a move away from self-regulation towards co-regulation of social media platforms within the European Union. To address online harms and rising platform power the DSA clarifies responsibilities of platforms and outlines a new technology regulatory framework to increase oversight. One key oversight instrument constitutes Article 40 of the DSA, which lays out data access for vetted researchers, who add value to regulators and the broader public as creators of knowledge, educators, advisors, innovators, and watchdogs. Currently, the EU Commission and national governments make important decisions regarding Digital Service Coordinators (DSCs) that play a key role in implementation. Based on expertise on European public administration and political science we lay out key challenges and success factors of DSCs that will play a role in promoting successful cooperation between DSCs and researchers. We provide three recommendations: First, we recommend to strengthen transfer of scientific knowledge into policy-making by processing publicly accessible publications within public administrative bodies. To this end, capacities of DSCs need to be increased. In addition, we also point towards the database of vetted researchers collected by the Board of DSCs as important resource in order to strengthen knowledge transfer. Second, the DSC network requires agile institutions with fast response time in order to enable researchers to play a constructive role in implementation. This also includes institutional procedures between DSCs and the Intermediary Body and Data Protection Agencies. To avoid delay in implementation agile institution-building needs to start now. Finally, institutional safeguards will help to avoid strategic choice of companies of the DSC of establishment. At the same time, the Irish DSC's capacity should be strengthened compared to other national DSCs since most large intermediary services providers have their European headquarters in Ireland. Y1 - 2023 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-49479 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-4947 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Romanello, Marina A1 - Walawender, Maria A1 - Hsu, Shih-Che A1 - Moskeland, Annalyse A1 - Palmeiro-Silva, Yasna A1 - Scamman, Daniel A1 - Ali, Zakari A1 - Ameli, Nadia A1 - Angelova, Denitsa A1 - Ayeb-Karlsson, Sonja A1 - Basart, Sara A1 - Beagley, Jessica A1 - Beggs, Paul J A1 - Blanco-Villafuerte, Luciana A1 - Cai, Wenjia A1 - Callaghan, Max A1 - Campbell-Lendrum, Diarmid A1 - Chambers, Jonathan D A1 - Chicmana-Zapata, Victoria A1 - Chu, Lingzhi A1 - Cross, Troy J A1 - van Daalen, Kim R A1 - Dalin, Carole A1 - Dasandi, Niheer A1 - Dasgupta, Shouro A1 - Davies, Michael A1 - Dubrow, Robert A1 - Eckelman, Matthew J A1 - Ford, James D A1 - Freyberg, Chris A1 - Gasparyan, Olga A1 - Gordon-Strachan, Georgiana A1 - Grubb, Michael A1 - Gunther, Samuel H A1 - Hamilton, Ian A1 - Hang, Yun A1 - Hänninen, Risto A1 - Hartinger, Stella A1 - He, Kehan A1 - Heidecke, Julian A1 - Hess, Jeremy J A1 - Jamart, Louis A1 - Jankin, Slava A1 - Jatkar, Harshavardhan A1 - Jay, Ollie A1 - Kelman, Ilan A1 - Kennard, Harry A1 - Kiesewetter, Gregor A1 - Kinney, Patrick A1 - Kniveton, Dominic A1 - Kouznetsov, Rostislav A1 - Lampard, Pete A1 - Lee, Jason K W A1 - Lemke, Bruno A1 - Li, Bo A1 - Liu, Yang A1 - Liu, Zhao A1 - Llabrés-Brustenga, Alba A1 - Lott, Melissa A1 - Lowe, Rachel A1 - Martinez-Urtaza, Jaime A1 - Maslin, Mark A1 - McAllister, Lucy A1 - McMichael, Celia A1 - Mi, Zhifu A1 - Milner, James A1 - Minor, Kelton A1 - Minx, Jan A1 - Mohajeri, Nahid A1 - Momen, Natalie C A1 - Moradi-Lakeh, Maziar A1 - Morrisey, Karyn A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Murray, Kris A A1 - Obradovich, Nick A1 - O'Hare, Megan B A1 - Oliveira, Camile A1 - Oreszczyn, Tadj A1 - Otto, Matthias A1 - Owfi, Fereidoon A1 - Pearman, Olivia L A1 - Pega, Frank A1 - Perishing, Andrew J A1 - Pinho-Gomes, Ana-Catarina A1 - Ponmattam, Jamie A1 - Rabbaniha, Mahnaz A1 - Rickman, Jamie A1 - Robinson, Elizabeth A1 - Rocklöv, Joacim A1 - Rojas-Rueda, David A1 - Salas, Renee N A1 - Semenza, Jan C A1 - Sherman, Jodi D A1 - Shumake-Guillemot, Joy A1 - Singh, Pratik A1 - Sjödin, Henrik A1 - Slater, Jessica A1 - Sofiev, Mikhail A1 - Sorensen, Cecilia A1 - Springmann, Marco A1 - Stalhandske, Zélie A1 - Stowell, Jennifer D A1 - Tabatabaei, Meisam A1 - Taylor, Jonathon A1 - Tong, Daniel A1 - Tonne, Cathryn A1 - Treskova, Marina A1 - Trinanes, Joaquin A A1 - Uppstu, Andreas A1 - Wagner, Fabian A1 - Warnecke, Laura A1 - Whitcombe, Hannah A1 - Xian, Peng A1 - Zavaleta-Cortijo, Carol A1 - Zhang, Chi A1 - Zhang, Ran A1 - Zhang, Shihui A1 - Zhang, Ying A1 - Zhu, Qiao A1 - Gong, Peng A1 - Montgomery, Hugh A1 - Costello, Anthony T1 - The 2024 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: facing record-breaking threats from delayed action JF - The Lancet Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01822-1 SN - 0140-6736 VL - 404 IS - 10465 SP - 1847 EP - 1896 PB - Elsevier BV ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Traunmüller, Richard A1 - Barberá, Pablo A1 - Guess, Andrew A1 - Yang, JungHwan ED - Ognyanova, Katherine T1 - Citizen preferences for online hate speech regulation JF - PNAS Nexus N2 - The shift of public discourse to online platforms has intensified the debate over content moderation by platforms and the regulation of online speech. Designing rules that are met with wide acceptance requires learning about public preferences. We present a visual vignette study using a sample (n=2,622) of German and US citizens that were exposed to 20,976 synthetic social media vignettes mimicking actual cases of hateful speech. We find people’s evaluations to be primarily shaped by message type and severity, and less by contextual factors. While focused measures like deleting hateful content are popular, more extreme sanctions like job loss find little support even in cases of extreme hate. Further evidence suggests in-group favoritism among political partisans. Experimental evidence shows that exposure to hateful speech reduces tolerance of unpopular opinions. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgaf032 SN - 2752-6542 VL - 4 IS - 2 PB - Oxford University Press (OUP) ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Ramirez-Ruiz, Sebastian A1 - Watteler, Oliver A1 - Breuer, Johannes A1 - Batzdorfer, Veronika A1 - Eder, Christina A1 - Wiltshire, Deborah A A1 - Barberá, Pablo A1 - Guess, Andrew Markus A1 - Yang, JungHwan T1 - Publishing Combined Web Tracking and Survey Data N2 - Combined survey and web tracking data have great potential for social-scientific research. They allow linking information on online behavior with data on reported offline behavior, opinions, and attitudes. At the same time, ethical, legal, and technical challenges make it difficult to disseminate linked web tracking data to the scientific community. This whitepaper aims to address these challenges by providing guidance for researchers and archivists, discussing legal, practical, and ethical aspects, disclosure risks, and establishing a framework for publishing web tracking data. Recommendations for best practices are also provided based on experiences from a research project funded by the German Consortium for the Social, Behavioural, Educational and Economic Sciences. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/y4v8z PB - Center for Open Science ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Göbel, Sascha A1 - Munzert, Simon T1 - The Comparative Legislators Database JF - British Journal of Political Science N2 - Knowledge about political representatives' behavior is crucial for a deeper understanding of politics and policy-making processes. Yet resources on legislative elites are scattered, often specialized, limited in scope or not always accessible. This article introduces the Comparative Legislators Database (CLD), which joins micro-data collection efforts on open-collaboration platforms and other sources, and integrates with renowned political science datasets. The CLD includes political, sociodemographic, career, online presence, public attention, and visual information for over 45,000 contemporary and historical politicians from ten countries. The authors provide a straightforward and open-source interface to the database through an R package, offering targeted, fast and analysis-ready access in formats familiar to social scientists and standardized across time and space. The data is verified against human-coded datasets, and its use for investigating legislator prominence and turnover is illustrated. The CLD contributes to a central hub for versatile information about legislators and their behavior, supporting individual-level comparative research over long periods. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123420000897 SN - 0007-1234 N1 - Published online 23 February 2021 Göbel, S., & Munzert, S. (2022). The Comparative Legislators Database. British Journal of Political Science, 52(3), 1398–1408. doi:10.1017/S0007123420000897 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Romanello, Marina A1 - Napoli, Claudia di A1 - Green, Carole A1 - Kennard, Harry A1 - Lampard, Pete A1 - Scamman, Daniel A1 - Walawender, Maria A1 - Ali, Zakari A1 - Ameli, Nadia A1 - Ayeb-Karlsson, Sonja A1 - Beggs, Paul J A1 - Belesova, Kristine A1 - Berrang Ford, Lea A1 - Bowen, Kathryn A1 - Cai, Wenjia A1 - Callaghan, Max A1 - Campbell-Lendrum, Diarmid A1 - Chambers, Jonathan A1 - Cross, Troy J A1 - van Daalen, Kim R A1 - Dalin, Carole A1 - Dasandi, Niheer A1 - Dasgupta, Shouro A1 - Davies, Michael A1 - Dominguez-Salas, Paula A1 - Dubrow, Robert A1 - Ebi, Kristie L A1 - Eckelman, Matthew A1 - Ekins, Paul A1 - Freyberg, Chris A1 - Gasparyan, Olga A1 - Gordon-Strachan, Georgiana A1 - Graham, Hilary A1 - Gunther, Samuel H A1 - Hamilton, Ian A1 - Hang, Yun A1 - Hänninen, Risto A1 - Hartinger, Stella A1 - He, Kehan A1 - Heidecke, Julian A1 - Hess, Jeremy J A1 - Hsu, Shih-Che A1 - Jamart, Louis A1 - Jankin, Slava A1 - Jay, Ollie A1 - Kelman, Ilan A1 - Kiesewetter, Gregor A1 - Kinney, Patrick A1 - Kniveton, Dominic A1 - Kouznetsov, Rostislav A1 - Larosa, Francesca A1 - Lee, Jason K W A1 - Lemke, Bruno A1 - Liu, Yang A1 - Liu, Zhao A1 - Lott, Melissa A1 - Lotto Batista, Martín A1 - Lowe, Rachel A1 - Odhiambo Sewe, Maquins A1 - Martinez-Urtaza, Jaime A1 - Maslin, Mark A1 - McAllister, Lucy A1 - McMichael, Celia A1 - Mi, Zhifu A1 - Milner, James A1 - Minor, Kelton A1 - Minx, Jan C A1 - Mohajeri, Nahid A1 - Momen, Natalie C A1 - Moradi-Lakeh, Maziar A1 - Morrissey, Karyn A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Murray, Kris A A1 - Neville, Tara A1 - Nilsson, Maria A1 - Obradovich, Nick A1 - O'Hare, Megan B A1 - Oliveira, Camile A1 - Oreszczyn, Tadj A1 - Otto, Matthias A1 - Owfi, Fereidoon A1 - Pearman, Olivia A1 - Pega, Frank A1 - Pershing, Andrew A1 - Rabbaniha, Mahnaz A1 - Rickman, Jamie A1 - Robinson, Elizabeth J Z A1 - Rocklöv, Joacim A1 - Salas, Renee N A1 - Semenza, Jan C A1 - Sherman, Jodi D A1 - Shumake-Guillemot, Joy A1 - Silbert, Grant A1 - Sofiev, Mikhail A1 - Springmann, Marco A1 - Stowell, Jennifer D A1 - Tabatabaei, Meisam A1 - Taylor, Jonathon A1 - Thompson, Ross A1 - Tonne, Cathryn A1 - Treskova, Marina A1 - Trinanes, Joaquin A A1 - Wagner, Fabian A1 - Warnecke, Laura A1 - Whitcombe, Hannah A1 - Winning, Matthew A1 - Wyns, Arthur A1 - Yglesias-González, Marisol A1 - Zhang, Shihui A1 - Zhang, Ying A1 - Zhu, Qiao A1 - Gong, Peng A1 - Montgomery, Hugh A1 - Costello, Anthony T1 - The 2023 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: the imperative for a health-centred response in a world facing irreversible harms JF - The Lancet Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)01859-7 VL - 402 IS - 10419 SP - 2346 EP - 2394 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stoetzer, Lukas F. A1 - Erfort, Cornelius A1 - Rajski, Hannah A1 - Gschwend, Thomas A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Koch, Elias T1 - An election forecasting model for subnational elections JF - Electoral Studies N2 - While election forecasts predominantly focus on national contests, many democratic elections take place at the subnational level. Subnational elections pose unique challenges for traditional fundamentals forecasting models due to less available polling data and idiosyncratic subnational politics. In this article, we present and evaluate the performance of Bayesian forecasting models for German state elections from 1990 to 2024. Our forecasts demonstrate high accuracy at lead times of two days, two weeks, and two months, and offer valuable ex-ante predictions for three state elections held in September 2024. These findings underscore the potential for applying election forecasting models effectively to subnational elections. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102939 VL - 95 PB - Elsevier BV ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Oswald, Lisa A1 - Munzert, Simon T1 - Exposure to untrustworthy news media then and now: Declining news media quality over 7 years N2 - In a rapidly evolving digital media landscape, understanding how exposure to untrustworthy news changes over time is essential for evaluating its potential effects on public attitudes and behavior. However, there is limited evidence on how demand for untrustworthy news develops across longer time frames. Linking web data with surveys, we compare exposure to untrustworthy news sources across demographic and political groups and over a 7-year time frame for two samples of German adults (N = 1,212 in 2017 and N = 436 in 2024). Visits to untrustworthy news sources make up less than 1% of media diets and are associated with low satisfaction with democracy and a preference for a far-right party. Propensity score matching reveals stability in untrustworthy news exposure, yet a notable decline in the average quality of news diets over 7 years. These results suggest that while untrustworthy news exposure remains limited and stable, a broader erosion in news quality may pose a growing challenge for informed democratic engagement. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/5ndjx_v1 PB - OSF ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Hartmann, David A1 - Oueslati, Amin A1 - Staufer, Dimitri A1 - Pohlmann, Lena A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Heuer, Hendrik T1 - Lost in Moderation: How Commercial Content Moderation APIs Over- and Under-Moderate Group-Targeted Hate Speech and Linguistic Variations N2 - Commercial content moderation APIs are marketed as scalable solutions to combat online hate speech. However, the reliance on these APIs risks both silencing legitimate speech, called over-moderation, and failing to protect online platforms from harmful speech, known as under-moderation. To assess such risks, this paper introduces a framework for auditing black-box NLP systems. Using the framework, we systematically evaluate five widely used commercial content moderation APIs. Analyzing five million queries based on four datasets, we find that APIs frequently rely on group identity terms, such as ``black'', to predict hate speech. While OpenAI's and Amazon's services perform slightly better, all providers under-moderate implicit hate speech, which uses codified messages, especially against LGBTQIA+ individuals. Simultaneously, they over-moderate counter-speech, reclaimed slurs and content related to Black, LGBTQIA+, Jewish, and Muslim people. We recommend that API providers offer better guidance on API implementation and threshold setting and more transparency on their APIs' limitations. Warning: This paper contains offensive and hateful terms and concepts. We have chosen to reproduce these terms for reasons of transparency. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2503.01623 N1 - This is the author's version of the paper accepted at CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '25), April 26-May 1, 2025, Yokohama, Japan. The version of record is available at: Hartmann, D., Oueslati, A., Staufer, D., Pohlmann, L., Munzert, S., & Heuer, H. (2025). Lost in Moderation: How Commercial Content Moderation APIs Over- and Under-Moderate Group-Targeted Hate Speech and Linguistic Variations. Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI ’25, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3713998 PB - arXiv ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Hartmann, David A1 - Oueslati, Amin A1 - Staufer, Dimitri A1 - Pohlmann, Lena A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Heuer, Hendrik T1 - Lost in Moderation: How Commercial Content Moderation APIs Over- and Under-Moderate Group-Targeted Hate Speech and Linguistic Variations T2 - Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems N2 - Commercial content moderation APIs are marketed as scalable solutions to combat online hate speech. However, the reliance on these APIs risks both silencing legitimate speech, called over-moderation, and failing to protect online platforms from harmful speech, known as under-moderation. To assess such risks, this paper introduces a framework for auditing black-box NLP systems. Using the framework, we systematically evaluate five widely used commercial content moderation APIs. Analyzing five million queries based on four datasets, we find that APIs frequently rely on group identity terms, such as “black”, to predict hate speech. While OpenAI’s and Amazon’s services perform slightly better, all providers under-moderate implicit hate speech, which uses codified messages, especially against LGBTQIA+ individuals. Simultaneously, they over-moderate counter-speech, reclaimed slurs and content related to Black, LGBTQIA+, Jewish, and Muslim people. We recommend that API providers offer better guidance on API implementation and threshold setting and more transparency on their APIs’ limitations. Warning: This paper contains offensive and hateful terms and concepts. We have chosen to reproduce these terms for reasons of transparency. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3713998 N1 - The author's version is available at: Hartmann, D., Oueslati, A., Staufer, D., Pohlmann, L., Munzert, S., & Heuer, H. (2025). Lost in Moderation: How Commercial Content Moderation APIs Over- and Under-Moderate Group-Targeted Hate Speech and Linguistic Variations. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2503.01623 SP - 1 EP - 26 PB - ACM CY - New York, NY, USA ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Romanello, Marina A1 - Walawender, Maria A1 - Hsu, Shih-Che A1 - Moskeland, Annalyse A1 - Palmeiro-Silva, Yasna A1 - Scamman, Daniel A1 - Smallcombe, James W A1 - Abdullah, Sabah A1 - Ades, Melanie A1 - Al-Maruf, Abdullah A1 - Ameli, Nadia A1 - Angelova, Denitsa A1 - Ayeb-Karlsson, Sonja A1 - Ballester, Joan A1 - Basagaña, Xavier A1 - Bechara, Hannah A1 - Beggs, Paul J A1 - Cai, Wenjia A1 - Campbell-Lendrum, Diarmid A1 - Charnley, Gina E C A1 - Courtenay, Orin A1 - Cross, Troy J A1 - Dalin, Carole A1 - Dasandi, Niheer A1 - Dasgupta, Shouro A1 - Davies, Michael A1 - Eckelman, Matthew A1 - Freyberg, Chris A1 - Garcia Corral, Paulina A1 - Gasparyan, Olga A1 - Giguere, Joseph A1 - Gordon-Strachan, Georgiana A1 - Gumy, Sophie A1 - Gunther, Samuel H A1 - Hamilton, Ian A1 - Hang, Yun A1 - Hänninen, Risto A1 - Hartinger, Stella A1 - He, Kehan A1 - Heidecke, Julian A1 - Hess, Jeremy J A1 - Jankin, Slava A1 - Jay, Ollie A1 - Pantera, Dafni Kalatzi A1 - Kelman, Ilan A1 - Kennard, Harry A1 - Kiesewetter, Gregor A1 - Kinney, Patrick A1 - Kniveton, Dominic A1 - Koubi, Vally A1 - Kouznetsov, Rostislav A1 - Lampard, Pete A1 - Lee, Jason K W A1 - Lemke, Bruno A1 - Li, Bo A1 - Linke, Andrew A1 - Liu, Yang A1 - Liu, Zhao A1 - Lowe, Rachel A1 - Ma, Siqi A1 - Mabhaudhi, Tafadzwanashe A1 - Maia, Carla A1 - Markandya, Anil A1 - Martin, Greta A1 - Martinez-Urtaza, Jaime A1 - Maslin, Mark A1 - McAllister, Lucy A1 - McMichael, Celia A1 - Mi, Zhifu A1 - Milner, James A1 - Minor, Kelton A1 - Minx, Jan A1 - Mohajeri, Nahid A1 - Momen, Natalie C A1 - Moradi-Lakeh, Maziar A1 - Morrisey, Karyn A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Murray, Kris A A1 - Obradovich, Nick A1 - Orgen, Papa A1 - Otto, Matthias A1 - Owfi, Fereidoon A1 - Pearman, Olivia L A1 - Pega, Frank A1 - Pershing, Andrew J A1 - Pinho-Gomes, Ana-Catarina A1 - Ponmattam, Jamie A1 - Rabbaniha, Mahnaz A1 - Repke, Tim A1 - Roa, Jorge A1 - Robinson, Elizabeth A1 - Rocklöv, Joacim A1 - Rojas-Rueda, David A1 - Ruiz-Cabrejos, Jorge A1 - Rusticucci, Matilde A1 - Salas, Renee N A1 - San José Plana, Adrià A1 - Semenza, Jan C A1 - Sherman, Jodi D A1 - Shumake-Guillemot, Joy A1 - Singh, Pratik A1 - Sjödin, Henrik A1 - Smith, Matthew R A1 - Sofiev, Mikhail A1 - Sorensen, Cecilia A1 - Springmann, Marco A1 - Stowell, Jennifer D A1 - Tabatabaei, Meisam A1 - Tartarini, Federico A1 - Taylor, Jonathon A1 - Tonne, Cathryn A1 - Treskova, Marina A1 - Trinanes, Joaquin A A1 - Uppstu, Andreas A1 - Valdes-Ortega, Nicolas A1 - Wagner, Fabian A1 - Watts, Nick A1 - Whitcombe, Hannah A1 - Wood, Richard A1 - Yang, Pu A1 - Zhang, Ying A1 - Zhang, Shaohui A1 - Zhang, Chi A1 - Zhang, Shihui A1 - Zhu, Qiao A1 - Gong, Peng A1 - Montgomery, Hugh A1 - Costello, Anthony T1 - The 2025 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: climate change action offers a lifeline JF - The Lancet Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(25)01919-1 VL - 406 IS - 10521 SP - 2804 EP - 2857 PB - Elsevier BV ER -