Zeve Sanderson

As generative AI becomes more accessible, synthetic political images are reshaping how people see and interpret events. One question remains: Do AI labels help the public navigate this environment?

Our new preprint, It Works When It Works, tests exactly that.
🔗 osf.io/preprints/so...

Really exicted to finally see our paper in print: “Web scraping for research: Legal, ethical, institutional, and scientific considerations”
A great interdisciplinary effort with @m-dot-brown.bsky.social, @orangechair.org, Gabe Maldoff, @solmg.bsky.social, @zevesanderson.com
doi.org/10.1177/2053...

Tech Talks: Age Verification In this episode of Tech Talks, we dive into the growing debate over online age verification. While often framed as a way to protect children, these policies carry major implications for how everyone, adults and children alike, accesses the internet. Unlike showing an ID at a bar, online age checks can require the collection and […]

Guests @zevesanderson.com, CDT Research Fellow @mluria.bsky.social, and guest host
@aliyabhatia.bsky.social unpack what users really think about age checks, how they shape online behavior, and what’s at stake for balancing child safety with digital rights.

My last piece while at NYU 👇

Can We Stop Kids From Watching Porn?

I discussed our paper and the broader policy space with Jerusalem on an Atlantic podcast this spring: open.spotify.com/episode/51PT...

In our paper, we show massive substitution of compliant sites for non-compliant sites in the US. Not only does this reward noncompliance, but (worse) it also pushes kids towards less regulated corners of the internet

osf.io/vp9z6/

"The misinformation paradigm, for all its limitations, has shown that rapid, large-scale coordination around democratic challenges is possible."

Not at all! Appreciate the pushback and think you’re doing really important work on this — glad it’s brought in conversation here

💯 I’m excited about some of the recent platform design work I’ve seen — and lots of it takes a much broader view of discourse / information quality than veracity

Lots of thoughts about why it developed this way.

And should’ve linked to your paper in our piece so hoping to boost it here! Is it under review?

Appreciate your read & critique! And love the paper you shared. Relative to other pieces, we don’t see this as central to our diagnosis. Our bigger issue is the broader frame that groups all information together under a single analytical lens — making veracity the central feature of communication

We Failed The Misinformation Fight. Now What? | NOEMA Defending democracy in the digital age will require moving beyond the focus of fighting online misinformation.

But the fight also built coalitions and energy we shouldn’t lose.

The challenge now is to sustain that momentum while redirecting efforts toward healthier, more democratic information systems.

Read here: www.noemamag.com/we-failed-th...

Scott & I with a new piece in @noemamag.com

We argue the “misinformation paradigm” has:
– Overstated online misinformation’s role in politics
– Ignored much of what we know about communication
– Directed attention to strategies ill-suited to today’s environment

We Failed The Misinformation Fight. Now What? | NOEMA Defending democracy in the digital age will require moving beyond the focus of fighting online misinformation.

“The last decade has made clear that we aren’t going to fact-check or inoculate our way toward a healthier civic culture.”

— @zevesanderson.com & Scott Babwah Brennen

#misinformation #disinformation #democracy

some good & important questions in a terribly framed article www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/m...

Since I entered this space as a grad student, @mmasnick.bsky.social has been one of my favorite thinkers and writers on a range of topics. And so it was an honor & blast for me to spend the afternoon with him yesterday discussing algos, AI, and what we can do about potential harms - link below 👇

Thanks, Larry!

Thanks for the kind words, Mike! Great ep, as usual :)

You can find the full working paper: osf.io/z83ev
And please DM with any feedback on the paper!

2) More broadly, studies around content moderation, platform policies, & privacy regulations similarly show that users find ways to bypass digital restrictions. As states expand digital access laws, understanding these adaptation behaviors is crucial for effective policy design.

This research has two key policy implications:

1) Multiple states are implementing age-verification laws this year, with others considering similar measures. Policymakers can use these findings to refine implementation strategies and future legislation.

Knocking on the door of a porn empire Financial pressure pushed MindGeek to alter its practices radically. But one of its biggest rivals changed almost nothing

Why does this matter? While age-verification laws may successfully reduce traffic to regulated platforms, they also appear to drive users toward potentially less regulated & more dangerous alternatives. See this @FT podcast for more on Pornhub vs XVideos: www.ft.com/content/cc9a...

Using pre-registered synthetic controls, we find that users in affected states simply shift their habits by searching for non-compliant sites or ways to circumvent the laws
- PornHub searches dropped 52%
- XVideos searches increased 48.1%
- VPN searches increased 23.6%

We focused on Pornhub and XVideos for the analysis. They're both top 20 websites in the US based on traffic (and the only 2 adult sites in the top 20). They also provided a natural comparison since one (Pornhub) complied w/these laws and the other (XVideos) didn't.

In this paper, use Google Trends data to examine what happened after age verification requirements went into effect. Did users change their search habits? Were there differences btwn sites that complied and those that didn't? Did overall search interest in adult content change?

While proponents argue these laws are essential to protect minors and prevent them from accessing online pornography, critics claim they are ineffective, compromise user privacy, and could drive users to less regulated platforms with more dangerous content.

Over the past 2 years, 19 states have passed age-verification laws, which require adult websites to verify users' ages through govt-issued ID or commercial age verification tools. SCOTUS recently heard arguments on the constitutionality of Texas's law.

action.freespeechcoalition.com/age-verifica...

Do age-verification laws for online adult content work? Based on Google search data, not really.

New WP from me and & co-authors up now on OSF: osf.io/z83ev

Regardless of whether TikTok will be sold to a non-Chinese owner, @zevesanderson.com, @solmg.bsky.social, and Scott Babwah Brennen argue that researchers need access to independent data to understand the platform’s democratic effects in the U.S. and abroad.

When it comes to understanding AI’s impact on elections, we’re still working in the dark Experts argue that AI's impact on elections remains unclear due to data gaps, highlighting the need for ad transparency.

You can read the full piece here from @zevesanderson.com, Scott Babwah Brennan, and Cristina de la Puerta: