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This study explores the dynamic relationship between online discourse, as observed in tweets, and physical hate crimes, focusing on marginalized groups. Leveraging natural language processing techniques, including keyword extraction and…
During the summer of 2019-20, while Australia suffered unprecedented bushfires across the country, false narratives regarding arson and limited backburning spread quickly on Twitter, particularly using the hashtag #ArsonEmergency.…
The #MeToo movement has catalyzed widespread public discourse surrounding sexual harassment and assault, empowering survivors to share their stories and holding perpetrators accountable. While the movement has had a substantial and largely…
Ad hominem attacks are those that target some feature of a person's character instead of the position the person is maintaining. These attacks are harmful because they propagate implicit biases and diminish a person's credibility. Since…
Among the topics discussed on social media, some spark more heated debate than others. For example, experience suggests that major political events, such as a vote for healthcare law in the US, would spark more debate between opposing sides…
This exploratory study examines the strategies of social bots on Twitter that were retweeted following a mass shooting event. Using a case study method to frame our work, we collected over seven million tweets during a one-month period…
Using high-frequency donation records from a major medical crowdfunding site and careful difference-in-difference analysis, we demonstrate that the 2020 BLM surge decreased the fundraising gap between Black and non-Black beneficiaries by…
Cyberbullying and cyberaggression are increasingly worrisome phenomena affecting people across all demographics. More than half of young social media users worldwide have been exposed to such prolonged and/or coordinated digital harassment.…
This work surveys 50 Black Lives Matter activists in the United States about the role of technology in organizing protests and other actions. Broad questions about the overall ease and safety of existing technology allowed them to…
The internet has transformed activism, giving rise to more organic, diverse, and dynamic social movements that transcend geo-political boundaries. Despite extensive research on the role of social media and the internet in cross-cultural…
The right to protest is perceived as one of the primary civil rights. Citizens participate in mass demonstrations to express themselves and exercise their democratic rights. However, because of the large number of participants, protests may…
Using the @NGRPresident Twitter handle, the Government of Nigeria issued a special directive banning Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) with immediate effect. The SARS is a special police unit under the Nigeria Police Force tasked with the…
Social media is considered a democratic space in which people connect and interact with each other regardless of their gender, race, or any other demographic factor. Despite numerous efforts that explore demographic factors in social media,…
Online firestorms on Twitter are seemingly arbitrarily occurring outrages towards people, companies, media campaigns and politicians. Moral outrages can create an excessive collective aggressiveness against one single argument, one single…
Polarization among US political parties, media and elites is a widely studied topic. Prominent lines of prior research across multiple disciplines have observed and analyzed growing polarization in social media. In this paper, we present a…
We provide an NLP framework to uncover four linguistic dimensions of political polarization in social media: topic choice, framing, affect and illocutionary force. We quantify these aspects with existing lexical methods, and propose…
Recently, there had been little notable activity from the once prominent hacktivist group, Anonymous. The group, responsible for activist-based cyber attacks on major businesses and governments, appeared to have fragmented after key members…
The media frequently describes the 2017 Charlottesville 'Unite the Right' rally as a turning point for the alt-right and white supremacist movements. Social movement theory suggests that the media attention and public discourse concerning…
Social media is considered a democratic space in which people connect and interact with each other regardless of their gender, race, or any other demographic aspect. Despite numerous efforts that explore demographic aspects in social media,…
Social movements supporting the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) play a vital role in improving human lives. If journalists were aware of the relationship between social movements and external events, they could provide more…