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Quantitative study of collective dynamics in online social networks is a new challenge based on the abundance of empirical data. Conclusions, however, may depend on factors as user's psychology profiles and their reasons to use the online…
Recent research has shown the deep impact of the dynamics of human interactions (or temporal social networks) on the spreading of information, opinion formation, etc. In general, the bursty nature of human interactions lowers the…
In the last few decades sociologists were trying to explain human behaviour by analysing social networks, which requires access to data about interpersonal relationships. This represented a big obstacle in this research field until the…
Loneliness has reached epidemic proportions globally, posing serious risks to mental and physical health. As social media platforms increasingly mediate social interaction, understanding their relationship with loneliness has become urgent.…
Community detection in online social networks is typically based on the analysis of the explicit connections between users, such as "friends" on Facebook and "followers" on Twitter. But online users often have hundreds or even thousands of…
The serious privacy and security problems related to online social networks (OSNs) are what fueled two complementary studies as part of this thesis. In the first study, we developed a general algorithm for the mining of data of targeted…
Studying political activity on social media often requires defining and measuring political stances of users or content. Relevant examples include the study of opinion polarization, or the study of political diversity in online content…
Location-sharing services were built upon people's desire to share their activities and locations with others. By "checking-in" to a place, such as a restaurant, a park, gym, or train station, people disclose where they are, thereby…
Wikipedia is the biggest encyclopedia ever created and the fifth most visited website in the world. Tens of millions of people surf it every day, seeking answers to various questions. Collective user activity on its pages leaves publicly…
Several one-fits-all intervention policies were introduced by the Online Social Networks (OSNs) platforms to mitigate potential harms. Nevertheless, some studies showed the limited effectiveness of these approaches. An alternative to this…
Recently, many online social networks, such as MySpace, Orkut, and Friendster, have faced inactivity decay of their members, which contributed to the collapse of these networks. The reasons, mechanics, and prevention mechanisms of such…
There is a large amount of interest in understanding users of social media in order to predict their behavior in this space. Despite this interest, user predictability in social media is not well-understood. To examine this question, we…
Users organize themselves into communities on web platforms. These communities can interact with one another, often leading to conflicts and toxic interactions. However, little is known about the mechanisms of interactions between…
In the advent of a pervasive presence of location sharing services researchers gained an unprecedented access to the direct records of human activity in space and time. This paper analyses geo-located Twitter messages in order to uncover…
The present study argues that political communication on social media is mediated by a platform's digital architecture, defined as the technical protocols that enable, constrain, and shape user behavior in a virtual space. A framework for…
The profusion of user generated content caused by the rise of social media platforms has enabled a surge in research relating to fields such as information retrieval, recommender systems, data mining and machine learning. However, the lack…
The orderly behaviors observed in large-scale groups, such as fish schooling and the organized movement of crowds, are both ubiquitous and essential for the survival and stability of these systems. Understanding how such complex collective…
Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are used for social activism purposes, and TikTok is no different. We conducted 9 qualitative semi-structured interviews with social activists who recently posted their videos on TikTok to…
Each year, significant investment of time and resources is made to improve diversity within engineering across a range of federal and state agencies, private/not-for-profit organizations, and foundations. In spite of decades of investments,…
This paper studies the dynamics of opinion formation and polarization in social media. We investigate whether users' stance concerning contentious subjects is influenced by the online discussions they are exposed to and interactions with…