Maria Cardona: I've heard talks where people are using Twitter to understand people's attitudes about extreme weather or heat waves. Do you see that you get really radically different answers from Twitter than you would from more traditional social science data gathering approaches? She says in a way, you're collecting spontaneous behavior and you can get to different populations.Cardona: The upcoming policies that we're not sure for how accessible those data will be is definitely something that is difficult for my community because it really has been such a resource.
Twitter has become indispensable to many scientists. It is a place to share findings, raise their profile, and is even used as a source of data in many studies.
In recent months though, the site has been in turmoil after a swathe of policy changes in light of Elon Musk's takeover. Never a stranger to misinformation and abuse, these problems have reportedly gotten worse. Additionally, the ability to use Twitter as a source of data is in peril, and malfunctions are more commonplace.
In this episode of Nature's Take we discuss how these changes are affecting the platform and the knock-on effects on science.
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