mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Navigating the Post-API Dilemma | Search Engine Results Pages Present a Biased View of Social Media Data

arXiv 2401.15479 ↗First posted 27 Jan 2024cs.IR cs.CL cs.SIcited by 3

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Abstract (arXiv)

Recent decisions to discontinue access to social media APIs are having detrimental effects on Internet research and the field of computational social science as a whole. This lack of access to data has been dubbed the Post-API era of Internet research. Fortunately, popular search engines have the means to crawl, capture, and surface social media data on their Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) if provided the proper search query, and may provide a solution to this dilemma. In the present work we ask: does SERP provide a complete and unbiased sample of social media data? Is SERP a viable alternative to direct API-access? To answer these questions, we perform a comparative analysis between (Google) SERP results and nonsampled data from Reddit and Twitter/X. We find that SERP results are highly biased in favor of popular posts; against political, pornographic, and vulgar posts; are more positive in their sentiment; and have large topical gaps. Overall, we conclude that SERP is not a viable alternative to social media API access.

Key facts. Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 12 of its 46 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 27 Jan 2024.

Builds on

12 of 46 references.

References · 12

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 2; 2026: 1.

3 papers.

  1. 2025Source Coverage and Citation Bias in LLM-based vs. Traditional Search Enginescited by 6
  2. 2025Predictively Combatting Toxicity in Health-related Online Discussions through Machine Learningcited by 0
  3. 2026Agent-based Modeling: Equilibrium, Echo Chambers, and Efficiency in Hybrid Coevolutionary Opinion Gamescited by 0