research outputs

Manuscripts, working papers, and presentations. I do not yet have peer-reviewed publications; the items below are research outputs — a submitted manuscript, working papers, a thesis, policy writing, and talks and posters.

Manuscripts & Writing

2026

  1. Beyond the ban: co-engagement network signals on Nepali Reddit in the run-up to the Sep 8 Gen Z protest
    Nima Thing
    2026
    Working paper (independent research; Meta Content Library access granted April 2026). Accepted as a poster for the "How Are You, Democracy?" conference, Karlsruhe, June 2026.
  2. Fact-Checking in the Feed: The Gap Between Output Metrics and Public Reception
    Nima Thing and logiq.media
    2026
    Mixed-methods commentary, co-authored at logiq.media. Submitted to the HKS Misinformation Review (under review).

2025

  1. Beyond the Ballot: TikTok Virality and Political Engagement in Nepal’s 2022 Election
    Nima Thing
    2025
    MSc thesis (Hertie School, 2025). Submitted and completed; revised after committee feedback. Supervised by Prof. Simon Munzert. Multimodal machine-learning pipeline (CLIP, Whisper, XGBoost) for political-virality prediction in a low-resource, multilingual electoral context. Not yet published as a journal article.

2023

  1. When Digital Tools Work Against Democracy
    Nima Thing
    2023
    Lead author (policy recommendations); Digital Governance & Social Media Governance. Regulatory analysis of social-media risks in the Brazilian context.

Presentations & Posters

2026

  1. Beyond the ban: co-engagement network signals on Nepali Reddit in the run-up to the Sep 8 Gen Z protest
    Nima Thing
    2026
    Accepted poster; 25 June 2026.
  2. Beyond the Ballot: TikTok virality and political engagement in Nepal’s local election 2022 (accepted poster)
    Nima Thing
    2026
    Abstract accepted; poster session 8 October 2026.
  3. TikTok Virality and Political Engagement in Nepal’s 2022 Election
    Nima Thing
    2026

2025

  1. TikTok Virality and Political Engagement in Nepal’s 2022 Election
    Nima Thing
    2025
  2. Deploying DistilBERT to Detect and Mitigate Information Bias
    Nima Thing
    2025
  3. Online Toxicity and Community Structure on Bluesky around a High-Profile Event
    Nima Thing
    2025
    Group project at SICSS-Saarbrücken. I led stance classification and author-network analysis. Zero-shot stance classification, Perspective API toxicity scoring, and community detection over a 46k-author network.