Colin Henry, PhD
Researcher at the intersection of political behavior and digital technology
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I'm a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zรผrich working on the Improving Online Discourse project. I study how digital platform architecture influences political behavior and community dynamics, with a focus on extremism and hate speech. Previously, I was a postdoctoral research fellow at George Washington University's Dynamic Online Networks Lab.
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Dissertation ProjectNEW!
Title: "Governance, Competition, & Extremism: How the Structure of Social Media Platforms Radicalizes Communities"
Core argument: Platform governance structures create competitive dynamics between communities that systematically drive radicalization. A study of comparative digital architectures and how they shape collective behavior.
Methods: Multi-platform analysis (Reddit, Twitter, Telegram, TikTok, YouTube), transformer models, network analysis, digital ethnography
Advised by: Jennifer Larson (co-chair), Cassy Dorff (co-chair), Emily Ritter, and Anita Gohdes (Hertie School)
๐ Published Research
Does Violence Against Journalists Deter Detailed Reporting? Evidence From Mexico
Journal of Conflict Resolution, July 2023
Digital Footprints and Data-Security Risks for Political Scientists
PS: Political Science & Politics, Volume 55, Issue 4, October 2022
โก Work in Progress
When Do Social Media Platforms Intervene in Online Hate Communities?
Revise & Resubmit, Journal of Politics โข with Sean Long, Rick Sear, Nicholas Johnson, Stefan Wuchty, Neil Johnson, and Yonatan Lupu
Content and Competition: Structural Sources of Online Extremism
Under Review โข Job Market Paper โข Download PDF
From Seeds to Communities: Adaptive Snowball Sampling and Community Detection in Cross-Platform Political Networks
Under Review
Scrolling through Hate: TikTok, Hate Speech and Content Moderation
Draft Available โข with Karsten Donnay, Fabrizio Gilardi, Gloria Gennaro, Dominik Hangartner, Benjamin Guinaudeau, Solomon Messing, Joshua A. Tucker
Indirect Effects of Content Moderation Errors: A Chatroom Experiment with AI Agents
Draft Available โข with Giuliano Formisano, Adiba Mahbub Proma, Karsten Donnay, and Fabrizio Gilardi
Varieties of Platform Governance
Draft Available
๐ Find Me Online
Google Scholar
Publications & citations
LinkedIn
Professional network
Vanderbilt
Job market profile
University of Zรผrich
Current affiliation
Bluesky
Social media
Mastodon
Decentralized social
๐ Honors & Recognition
Academic achievements and conference presentations
Conference Presenter
APSA Annual Meeting
2025
Featured Presenter
Political Methodology Society
2025
Travel Grant
Society of Political Methodology
2023
GATEways Project Grant
Vanderbilt Data Science Institute
2022
Digital Humanities Grant
Vanderbilt University
2021
Conference Presenter
Political Networks Conference
2023
๐ Link Collections
๐ Research I'm Thinking About
-
Believing What Politicians Communicate: Ideological Presentation of Self and Votersโ Perceptions of Politician Ideology
from Hans J. G. Hassell, Michael Heseltine, & Kevin Reuning in
British Journal of Political Sceince -
How People Use ChatGPT
from H Aaron Chatterji, Thomas Cunningham, David J. Deming, Zoe Hitzig, Christopher Ong, Carl Yan Shan & Kevin Wadman in
NBER -
Codebook LLMs: Evaluating LLMs as Measurement Tools for Political Science Concepts
from Andrew Halterman & Katherine A. Keith in
Political Analysis -
The Ethics of Social Media: Why Content Moderation is a Moral Duty
from Jeffrey Howard in
Journal of Practical Ethics
๐ ๏ธ Tools I Use Daily
- Python Primary language for data analysis, web scraping, and ML
- R / RStudio Statistical modeling & network analysis
- Tailscale Open-source software-defined mesh VPNs
- Hugging Face Transformers NLP & transformer models
- NetworkX Network analysis in Python
- netify Network analysis in R (co-author)
- Zotero Reference management
Also familiar with: Lisp, Go, Rust, Swift, C++, PHP
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