Social media tier distribution Pie chart: social media tier distribution across 3,849 scanned pages. Legacy only: 1,263 (32.8%), Modern only: 6 (0.2%), Mixed: 676 (17.6%), No Social: 939 (24.4%) Twitter/X only: 1,263 (43.8%) Modern only: 6 (0.2%) Mixed: 676 (23.4%) No Social: 939 (32.6%) Twitter/X only (43.8%) Modern only (0.2%) Mixed (23.4%) No Social (32.6%)

Social media tier distribution

Stats as of 2026-04-29 06:11 UTC — last scan: 2026-04-28

3 scan batches run

3,755 of 3,863 available pages scanned (97.2% coverage) 2,801 of 3,755 scanned pages were reachable (74.6%)

Legacy social media (older, centralised platforms):

Platform Pages with link % of scanned % of reachable
🐦 Twitter 1,045 27.8% 37.3%
✖ X 297 7.9% 10.6%
👍 Facebook 1,865 49.7% 66.6%
💼 LinkedIn 1,250 33.3% 44.6%

Modern / open social media (decentralised or open platforms):

Platform Pages with link % of scanned % of reachable
🦋 Bluesky 52 1.4% 1.9%
🐘 Mastodon / Fediverse 634 16.9% 22.6%

📥 Machine-readable results are available as the social-media-data.json artifact (machine-readable JSON).

Digital Sovereignty Rankings

Countries ranked by Digital Sovereignty Score — the percentage of reachable pages using no social media or modern open platforms only (Mastodon / Bluesky). A higher score means fewer links to US corporate social-media platforms (Twitter / X, Facebook, LinkedIn). Pages with no social-media links at all score highest; pages linking only to Mastodon or Bluesky also rank well. Legacy Exposure shows the percentage of reachable pages that still link to Twitter/X, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Rank Country Sovereignty Score No Social Modern Only Legacy Exposure Tier
1 Usa Edu Master 33.0% 917 6 67.0% ⚠️ Legacy-heavy
2 Usa Edu Top100 24.7% 22 0 75.3% ⚠️ Legacy-heavy

Social Media Scan by Institution Group

Available: all pages tracked in our domain list. Reachable: of those scanned, pages that returned a valid HTTP response (not an error or timeout). Sov. Score: Digital Sovereignty Score — % of reachable pages with no social media or modern-only social presence. Tier columns classify each page by its overall social media presence; platform columns count pages with at least one link to that platform — a page may appear in more than one platform column.

Country Scanned Available Reachable Sov. Score No Social Legacy-only Twitter X Facebook LinkedIn Modern Mixed Bluesky Mastodon Scan Period
Usa Edu Master 3,749 3,763 2,795 33.0% 917 1,232 1,040 296 1,859 1,246 6 640 51 630 Apr 2026
Usa Edu Top100 100 100 89 24.7% 22 31 41 19 67 53 0 36 9 33 Apr 2026
Total 3,849 3,863 2,884 32.8% 939 1,263 1,081 315 1,926 1,299 6 676 60 663 —

Hover or focus any non-zero country-table count to preview matching pages. Activate the number to keep the preview open. Full machine-readable data is available as the social-media-data.json artifact (machine-readable JSON).

Top 100 Universities - Social Media Presence

Social media presence for the top 100 US universities by national ranking. Tier shows the overall classification for each institution’s homepage. Platforms lists which social media networks were detected. Rows with Not yet scanned have not been included in a scan run yet.

Rank Institution Tier Platforms
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook
2 Stanford University ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
3 Harvard University 🔀 Mixed 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
4 Princeton University ❌ Unreachable (none)
5 California Institute of Technology 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🦋 Bluesky
6 Yale University ⚠️ Legacy-only 👍 Facebook
7 Columbia University ✅ No Social (none)
8 The University of Chicago ✅ No Social (none)
9 University of Pennsylvania ✅ No Social (none)
10 Johns Hopkins University ❌ Unreachable (none)
11 Northwestern University 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
12 Duke University 🔀 Mixed ✖ X, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
13 Dartmouth College ⚠️ Legacy-only ✖ X, 👍 Facebook
14 Brown University ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
15 Vanderbilt University 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
16 Rice University ❌ Unreachable (none)
17 University of Notre Dame ❌ Unreachable (none)
18 University of California Los Angeles 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
19 Georgetown University ✅ No Social (none)
20 Emory University 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
21 University of California Berkeley ✅ No Social (none)
22 Carnegie Mellon University 🔀 Mixed ✖ X, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🦋 Bluesky, 🐘 Mastodon
23 University of California San Diego 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🦋 Bluesky, 🐘 Mastodon
24 Tufts University ✅ No Social (none)
25 University of Florida ❌ Unreachable (none)
26 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ✅ No Social (none)
27 University of Rochester 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
28 Boston College 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🦋 Bluesky, 🐘 Mastodon
29 Case Western Reserve University ✅ No Social (none)
30 Georgia Institute of Technology ⚠️ Legacy-only ✖ X, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
31 Wake Forest University ❌ Unreachable (none)
32 New York University ✅ No Social (none)
33 Tulane University ✅ No Social (none)
34 University of Southern California ✅ No Social (none)
35 Boston University 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
36 Ohio State University ❌ Unreachable (none)
37 Lehigh University 🔀 Mixed 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
38 Pennsylvania State University 🔀 Mixed 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
39 Purdue University ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
40 University of Virginia ❌ Unreachable (none)
41 University of Michigan ✅ No Social (none)
42 Florida State University ⚠️ Legacy-only ✖ X, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
43 University of Georgia ✅ No Social (none)
44 University of Texas at Austin ✅ No Social (none)
45 University of Wisconsin Madison 🔀 Mixed ✖ X, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🦋 Bluesky
46 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
47 University of California Irvine ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
48 Indiana University Bloomington ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
49 Brandeis University 🔀 Mixed 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🦋 Bluesky, 🐘 Mastodon
50 University of California Davis ✅ No Social (none)
51 Rutgers The State University of New Jersey ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, ✖ X, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
52 College of William and Mary 🔀 Mixed 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
53 University of Maryland College Park 🔀 Mixed ✖ X, 👍 Facebook, 🐘 Mastodon
54 University of Pittsburgh 🔀 Mixed 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
55 University of Minnesota Twin Cities 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
56 Michigan State University 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
57 Arizona State University ⚠️ Legacy-only 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
58 University of Colorado Boulder 🔀 Mixed ✖ X, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🦋 Bluesky
59 University of Utah ⚠️ Legacy-only ✖ X, 👍 Facebook
60 University of Connecticut 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
61 George Washington University ❌ Unreachable (none)
62 American University ✅ No Social (none)
63 Northeastern University 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
64 George Mason University 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🦋 Bluesky, 🐘 Mastodon
65 Fordham University ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
66 Texas A&M University ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
67 University of Kansas ⚠️ Legacy-only 👍 Facebook
68 Oregon State University 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 🐘 Mastodon
69 Colorado State University ❌ Unreachable (none)
70 Virginia Tech 🔀 Mixed ✖ X, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🦋 Bluesky, 🐘 Mastodon
71 University of Iowa ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
72 Iowa State University 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, ✖ X, 👍 Facebook, 🐘 Mastodon
73 University of Nebraska Lincoln ⚠️ Legacy-only ✖ X, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
74 University of Arkansas ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
75 Stony Brook University ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
76 University of Arizona ⚠️ Legacy-only ✖ X, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
77 University of Alabama ✅ No Social (none)
78 Louisiana State University 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
79 University of Kentucky 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 🐘 Mastodon
80 University of Tennessee ✅ No Social (none)
81 University of Missouri ⚠️ Legacy-only ✖ X, 👍 Facebook
82 Kansas State University ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook
83 University of Mississippi ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
84 University of Oregon ✅ No Social (none)
85 University of Nevada Las Vegas ✅ No Social (none)
86 Baylor University ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, ✖ X, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
87 Southern Methodist University ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
88 University of Miami ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook
89 Villanova University ✅ No Social (none)
90 St. John’s University 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
91 Marquette University 🔀 Mixed ✖ X, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
92 Santa Clara University 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
93 University of Denver ✅ No Social (none)
94 Texas Christian University 🔀 Mixed ✖ X, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
95 Drexel University 🔀 Mixed 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon
96 Howard University ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook
97 Clark Atlanta University ❌ Unreachable (none)
98 Xavier University of Louisiana ⚠️ Legacy-only 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook
99 Spelman College ⚠️ Legacy-only ✖ X, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn
100 Morehouse College 🔀 Mixed 🐦 Twitter, 👍 Facebook, 💼 LinkedIn, 🐘 Mastodon

100 of 100 ranked institutions scanned so far.

Overview

The social media scanner fetches each institution page and inspects the HTML for links to known social platforms. Results are stored in the metadata database and published to this site via the Scan Progress Report.

Scans run automatically every 3 hours via GitHub Actions so that the full tracked URLs can be covered gradually without overloading institutional servers.

Platforms Tracked

Legacy Social Media (older, centralised platforms)

Platform Domains detected
Twitter twitter.com
X x.com
Facebook facebook.com, fb.com
LinkedIn linkedin.com

Modern / Open Social Media (decentralised or open platforms)

Platform Domains detected
Bluesky bsky.app, bsky.social
Mastodon / Fediverse 40+ known instances + /@username pattern detection

Tier Classification

Each scanned page is assigned one of five tiers:

Tier Meaning
unreachable Page could not be fetched (network error, timeout, 4xx/5xx)
no_social Page is reachable but contains no recognised social media links
twitter_only Page links only to legacy platforms (Twitter, X, Facebook, or LinkedIn)
modern_only Page links only to Bluesky or Mastodon (modern / open platforms)
mixed Page links to at least one legacy platform and at least one modern platform

Viewing Results

Scan Progress Report

The Scan Progress Report is regenerated after every scan and shows per-seed breakdowns including:

  • Total URLs scanned and reachable count
  • Tier distribution (twitter-only / modern / mixed / no-social / unreachable)
  • Per-platform link counts (Twitter, X, Bluesky, Mastodon)
  • Date range showing when each seed was last scanned

GitHub Actions Artifacts

Each workflow run also uploads a scan artifact containing:

  • data/metadata.db — the full SQLite results database
  • social-scan-output.txt — the raw scan log
  • data/toon-seeds/**_social.toon — annotated TOON files

To download artifacts:

  1. Go to GitHub Actions → Scan Social Media Links
  2. Click on the relevant workflow run
  3. Scroll to the Artifacts section at the bottom of the run summary page
  4. Download social-scan-<run_number> to inspect the database or TOON files

Seed Groups

The scanner uses TOON seed files to organise which institutions to scan. Multiple seed files are supported — each appears as a separate row in the Social Media Scan by Institution Group table and the Digital Sovereignty Rankings leaderboard.

Seed file Country code Contents
usa-edu-master.toon USA_EDU_MASTER All 3,700+ US .edu institutions
usa-edu-top100.toon USA_EDU_TOP100 Top 100 universities by national ranking

Top 100 Universities Seed

data/toon-seeds/usa-edu-top100.toon is generated from data/rankings/us-news-top100.csv using:

python3 scripts/build_top100_toon.py

Each domain entry in the Top 100 TOON carries a ranking field. When scan results exist for these URLs, the report adds a per-institution table showing each university’s social media tier ranked in order.

Per-State Seeds (optional)

The scripts/split_toon_by_state.py script can split the master TOON into one file per US state for state-level comparison:

# Preview what would be generated (no files written)
python3 scripts/split_toon_by_state.py --dry-run

# Generate all per-state TOON files
python3 scripts/split_toon_by_state.py

Note: State assignment currently uses institution-name pattern matching, which resolves approximately 36% of institutions. For full coverage, provide an IPEDS HD202x.csv file from the NCES data portal and match against WEBADDR / STABBR fields.

Running a Scan Manually

  1. Go to Actions → Scan Social Media Links
  2. Click Run workflow
  3. Optionally enter a seed code (e.g. USA_EDU_MASTER or USA_EDU_TOP100) or leave blank to scan all seed files
  4. Optionally adjust the rate limit (default: 1.0 req/sec)

Via the command line

# Scan the full master seed
python3 -m src.cli.scan_social_media --country USA_EDU_MASTER --rate-limit 1.0

# Scan only the Top 100 universities
python3 -m src.cli.scan_social_media --country USA_EDU_TOP100 --rate-limit 1.0

# Scan all seed files (with a 110-minute runtime cap)
python3 -m src.cli.scan_social_media --all --max-runtime 110 --rate-limit 1.0

Output Format

Annotated TOON file (*_social.toon)

Each page entry gains a social_media field:

{
  "url": "https://example.gov/",
  "is_root_page": true,
  "social_media": {
    "is_reachable": true,
    "social_tier": "mixed",
    "twitter_links": ["https://twitter.com/example_gov"],
    "x_links": [],
    "facebook_links": [],
    "linkedin_links": [],
    "bluesky_links": ["https://bsky.app/profile/example.bsky.social"],
    "mastodon_links": []
  }
}

Database table (url_social_media_results)

Column Type Description
url TEXT Page URL
country_code TEXT Legacy field name for seed identifier (e.g. USA_EDU_MASTER)
scan_id TEXT Unique scan run identifier
is_reachable INTEGER 1 = reachable, 0 = not reachable
twitter_links TEXT JSON list of twitter.com hrefs found
x_links TEXT JSON list of x.com hrefs found
facebook_links TEXT JSON list of facebook.com / fb.com hrefs found
linkedin_links TEXT JSON list of linkedin.com hrefs found
bluesky_links TEXT JSON list of Bluesky hrefs found
mastodon_links TEXT JSON list of Mastodon hrefs found
social_tier TEXT Tier classification (see above)
scanned_at TEXT ISO-8601 timestamp of scan

Coverage Scope

Scans currently target United States higher-education institutions in the seed set.

See also the Institution Domains page for a full listing of all tracked domains.

Architecture

flowchart TD
    A["scan-social-media.yml\n(GitHub Actions — every 3 hours)"]
    A --> B["scan_social_media.py (CLI)"]
    B --> C["SocialMediaScannerJob.scan_country()"]
    C --> D["SocialMediaScanner.scan_urls_batch()"]
    D --> E["For each URL"]
    E --> F["httpx.get() → HTML content"]
    F --> G["BeautifulSoup → extract href links\nMatch against platform patterns"]
    G --> H["Classify into social_tier"]
    H --> I["Save to url_social_media_results table"]
    I --> J["Write *_social.toon output file"]