Center for Social Media, AI, and Politics

What Center for Social Media, AI, and Politics does

The Center for Social Media, AI, and Politics (CSMAP) is a nonprofit academic research center at New York University, launched in October 2019 and built upon the university's SMaPP lab (founded 2012). CSMAP's mission is to strengthen democracy by conducting rigorous empirical research, advancing evidence-based public policy, and training the next generation of scholars at the intersection of digital media, AI, and politics. The center produces peer-reviewed research in top-tier journals (Science, Nature, PNAS, American Political Science Review), develops open-source data collection and analysis tools, and engages directly with policymakers in the U.S., Europe, and globally on digital regulation and platform governance.

CSMAP's core technology stack centers on computational social science: researchers employ large language models (including GPT, Claude, and Gemini), transformer-based architectures, supervised contrastive learning, and survey-based experimental designs to study political behavior, misinformation, algorithmic influence, and platform governance. The center has developed proprietary methodologies including Dictionary-Assisted Supervised Contrastive Learning (DASCL) for few-shot text classification and tools that make transformer models more accessible to social scientists. Its research outputs span large-scale election studies (e.g., US 2020 Facebook & Instagram Election Study), cross-national LLM audits, deepfake and synthetic persona analyses, and policy engagement around data access for independent researchers.

CSMAP operates as a university-affiliated research center without a commercial revenue model. It is funded primarily through philanthropic grants and foundation support, including a $5M investment from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and a $5M matching grant from the Charles Koch Foundation at launch (2019), plus ongoing support from Craig Newmark Philanthropies, the Hewlett Foundation, Siegel Family Endowment, and other funders. Research outputs, datasets, and tools are distributed free of charge. The center's primary "customers" are academic researchers, policymakers and government bodies, and journalists seeking empirical evidence on social media's impact on democratic processes.

Name

Center for Social Media, AI, and Politics

Legal name

NYU's Center for Social Media, AI, and Politics

Website

https://csmapnyu.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2019

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

CSMAP is a nonprofit academic research center at NYU that conducts empirical research on social media, AI, and democracy, publishing in top journals and informing digital platform policy globally.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Academic Research Services

NAICS

Research and Development in the Social Sciences and Humanities (54172)

SIC

Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)

akta.pro primary industry

Social Sciences Scholarly Publishing (EDAGAFAD)

akta.pro secondary industries

Higher Education Governance & Quality Policy Research (EDADADAI), Social Sciences & Public Policy Research Universities (EDAHABAD)

Keywords

• Academic political research
• Computational social science
• Social media analysis
• AI politics research
• Open-source research tools

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Foundation and Philanthropic Funding: The center is funded through grants and donations from multiple foundations and philanthropies, including the Knight Foundation ($5M), Charles Koch Foundation ($5M matching grant), Hewlett Foundation, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, and Siegel Family Endowment. Additional prior funding to the SMaPP lab came from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Rita Allen Foundation, Intel Corporation, Democracy Fund, Social Science Research Council, and the National Science Foundation.
2. Donations: The center accepts donations from the public through a dedicated donation page (GiveCampus), supporting its mission to study how social media affects politics.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

CSMAP is a university-affiliated academic research center that conducts rigorous empirical research on how social media and AI affect democracy. It produces peer-reviewed academic publications, develops open-source data collection and analysis tools, generates evidence-based policy analysis for global legislators and regulators, and trains PhD students and postdoctoral fellows in computational social science.

Product overview

CSMaP is an academic research center at NYU (not a commercial product company) that operates as a unified research organization. The center's primary offerings include: (1) Open-source data collection and analysis tools for social media research; (2) Policy research and analysis on digital platforms and AI governance; (3) Academic research publications in top journals; (4) The AI Political Archive for tracking generative AI in elections; (5) Large-scale election studies like the US 2020 Facebook & Instagram study; and (6) Educational programs training scholars. These offerings are interconnected—the tools enable the research, which informs policy, and the educational programs develop the next generation of researchers in this space.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Open-Source Data Collection and Analysis Tools
• Policy Research and Analysis
• Academic Research Publications
• AI Political Archive
• US 2020 Facebook & Instagram Election Study

Quantifiable outcome

• CSMAP research found that fake news made up roughly 1% of the average Twitter user's political news consumption in the month leading up to the 2016 election, and that conservatives and users over 65 were disproportionately likely to share fake news.
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability12 records

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Four partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Stanford Cyber Policy CentercoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCSMAP collaborates with Stanford's Cyber Policy Center on research projects. Nathaniel Persily is the Founding Co-Director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center. Joint work includes studies on fake news identification and broader research on social media and democracy.
• European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerReferenced as a model organization doing herculean work on data access for research in the digital economy. CSMAP's policy principles align with EDMO's approach to researcher data access under privacy laws.
• Knight-Georgetown InstituteminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerReferenced alongside EDMO as an organization doing significant work on data access for independent research on digital platforms.
• American Political Science Association (APSA)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerJoshua Tucker and Nathaniel Persily co-chaired the APSA Presidential Task Force on AI, Politics, and Political Science, which produced the volume 'Artificial Intelligence, Politics, and Political Science.'

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• AI Now Institute: NYU-based research institute examining the social implications of AI, with policy focus. Sister institute at NYU working on adjacent AI-governance themes with shared faculty networks and overlapping funder base.
• Knight-Georgetown Institute: Georgetown institute studying technology's impact on democracy, funded by the Knight Foundation. Explicitly named alongside CSMAP as a peer organization advancing researcher data access and evidence-based platform regulation.
• European Digital Media Observatory: EU-funded hub coordinating fact-checking and research on digital disinformation across Europe. Cited by CSMAP as a peer model for researcher data access under privacy laws and operates in the same disinformation/AI evidence space.
• Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy: Princeton University center conducting interdisciplinary research on the societal impact of digital technologies. Comparable academic model, policy engagement, and focus on platform governance and computational social science.
• Data & Society: Independent research institute studying the social implications of data-centric technologies. Comparable nonprofit structure, interdisciplinary scholar model, and focus on AI accountability, platform governance, and public-interest research.
• Stanford Cyber Policy Center: Stanford-affiliated research center studying the intersection of technology, democracy, and governance. Direct collaboration partner on the AI Political Archive and joint research with CSMAP's co-directors; operates in the same policy-and-evidence niche.
• Oxford Internet Institute: University of Oxford department researching the social implications of the internet, including politics, AI, and platform governance. Comparable mission, academic-publishing model, and interdisciplinary social science methodology.
• Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society: Harvard-affiliated research center studying internet, society, and law. Closely comparable in producing open-source research, policy engagement, and PhD/postdoc training at the technology-democracy intersection.

Broad incumbents

• MIT Media Lab: MIT research laboratory conducting interdisciplinary research on emerging technology and society. Overlaps with CSMAP in AI/politics research and computational social science, but operates at significantly broader technological scale rather than focusing on democracy-specific questions.
• Pew Research Center: Major nonpartisan research organization producing public opinion and media consumption studies. Larger and broader in scope than CSMAP, but overlaps substantially in social-media-and-politics research and uses similar public-opinion survey methodology.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/CSMaP_NYU
• GitHubgithub.com/SMAPPNYU
• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCM4IUnQ6v5_8a2J_DMhSwgg
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/the-center-for-social-media-and-politics

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds3 records

Investors1 record

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Center for Social Media, AI, and Politics