SCIENCE science.org 11 FEBRUARY 2022 • VOL 375 ISSUE 6581 593EDITORIAL
L
ong before the pandemic, scientists began flocking
to social media, sharing ideas, thoughts, and infor-
mation. But it is undeniable that the pandemic has
boosted the visibility and engagement of scientists
on many platforms, especially Twitter. Has this
been good or bad for science? The answer is both.
On the positive side, social media can be a good
way to collaborate on scientific questions quickly and
transparently, and along the way, many outstanding sci-
entists have been introduced to the public. It’s also a good
way for scientists to let off steam when the pressures of
hard work and a skeptical public pile up. On the nega-
tive side, these wide-open forums allow forces bent on
undermining science to cherry-pick the debates. In this
week’s issue of Science, commentaries about “Science and
social media” explore these matters, which have become
central to the scientific enterprise. As
the authors make clear, scientists must
give more consideration to the impact
and inner workings of social media to
use the medium effectively without in-
advertently causing misunderstanding
and being gamed by hyperalert trolls.
The pandemic has brought these
tensions to the fore. For example, Kath-
leen Hall Jamieson of the University
of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School
for Communication has pointed out
that instead of stating that “masks
work,” scientists should have been say-
ing “masks help” because they can’t
completely prevent the spread of
COVID-19. Those who communicate
science may tend to be drawn to absolutes out of fear
of seeming indecisive. However, there’s a trade-off. An
anti-masker who grudgingly wears a mask in public and
catches COVID-19 could gleefully claim that fact as evi-
dence that the scientific consensus is wrong. Though the
scientific community should have learned this lesson, the
hashtag #MasksWork still screams across Twitter. Simi-
larly, the hashtag #VaccinesWork means to scientists that
vaccination induces an immune response that decreases
disease severity, but to some of the public, it may mean
that vaccination completely prevents infection. Now, anti-
vaxxers are using breakthrough infection cases with the
Omicron variant to sow doubt.
Other problems arise when the give-and-take tumult
of scientific discussion unfolds in the public eye. Science
is an honorably self-correcting process. Interpretations
are revised and sometimes experimental results are
found to be incorrect, and conclusions are modified. Thesystem does a good job of converging ever closer to the
truth, but the record of these changes, often preserved in-
definitely on social media, provides material for agenda-
driven naysayers to paint scientists as flip-floppers when
they’re just doing what scientists are supposed to do.
When conspiracy theories proliferate on social media,
particularly about the pandemic, scientists sometimes
use humorous posts to scoff at the claims. The highest
engagement in my own personal Twitter account oc-
curred when charlatan Scott Atlas (who was an adviser
to President Trump) tweeted that many scientists sup-
ported the dangerous Great Barrington Declaration,
which advocated for letting severe acute respiratory
syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spread. I replied
to Atlas and said, “No they’re not. I would know.” The
fact that this tweet far outperformed anything else that
I posted on the pandemic—comments
backed by authoritative research—re-
flects how hungry folks are for a break
in the tension. Of course, these kinds
of exchanges can be taken out of con-
text, which can make scientists appear
out of touch with a doubting public.
The overarching problem is that
the algorithms used by the social
media companies actively discourage
authoritative information—disagree-
ment and outlandish statements re-
sult in more engagement. This point
is discussed compellingly in the Per-
spective by Brossard and Scheufele.
Most scientists don’t appreciate how
public resistance to facts can be am-
plified by inanimate algorithms, rather than by living
conspiracy theorists, that reinforce what people choose
to engage with.
What to do about all of this? At next week’s virtual an-
nual meeting (17 to 20 February) of the American Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Science (the publisher of
Science), I’ll be moderating a discussion among four out-
standing scientists and communicators who are on the
front lines of these challenges: Jane Lubchenco (White
House Office of Science and Technology Policy), Joelle
Simpson (Children’s National Hospital), Katherine Mack
(North Carolina State University), and Kathleen Hall Ja-
mieson (University of Pennsylvania). I’ll be asking these
leaders what the scientific community should be doing to
leverage the power of social media to foster greater un-
derstanding of science and more constructive exchange of
ideas. Tune in for an enlightening conversation.
–H. Holden ThorpScience and social media
H. Holden Thorp
Editor-in-Chief,
Science journals.
[email protected];
@hholdenthorp10.1126/science.abo
PHOTO: CAMERON DAVIDSON
“...scientists
must give more
consideration
to the...inner
workings of
social media...”