Related papers: Community Interaction and Conflict on the Web
Fringe communities promoting conspiracy theories and extremist ideologies have thrived on mainstream platforms, raising questions about the mechanisms driving their growth. Here, we hypothesize and study a possible mechanism: new members…
We often treat social media as a lens onto society. How might that lens distort the popularity of political and social viewpoints? We examine discrepancies between publicly posted and privately surveyed opinions within communities,…
Climate activism is crucial in stimulating collective societal and behavioral change towards sustainable practices through political pressure. Although multiple factors contribute to the participation in activism, their complex…
While cross-partisan conversations are central to a vibrant democracy, these are hard conversations to have, especially in the United States amidst unprecedented levels of partisan animosity. Such interactions often devolve into…
Online platforms face pressure to keep their communities civil and respectful. Thus, the bannings of problematic online communities from mainstream platforms like Reddit and Facebook are often met with enthusiastic public reactions.…
Many social media studies argue that social media creates echo chambers where some users only interact with peers of the same political orientation. However, recent studies suggest that a substantial amount of Cross-Partisan Interactions…
Social susceptibility is defined and analyzed using data from CNN news website. The current models of opinion dynamics, voting, and herding in closed communities are extended, and the community's response to the injection of a group with…
Widespread conspiracy theories, like those motivating anti-vaccination attitudes or climate change denial, propel collective action and bear society-wide consequences. Yet, empirical research has largely studied conspiracy theory adoption…
The Internet and online forums such as Reddit have become an increasingly popular medium for citizens to engage in political conversations. However, the online disinhibition effect resulting from the ability to use pseudonymous identities…
Does engagement with opposing views help break down ideological `echo chambers'; or does it backfire and reinforce them? This question remains critical as academics, policymakers and activists grapple with the question of how to regulate…
Online conversations can go in many directions: some turn out poorly due to antisocial behavior, while others turn out positively to the benefit of all. Research on improving online spaces has focused primarily on detecting and reducing…
The impact of social media on critical issues such as echo chambers needs to be addressed, as these phenomena can have disruptive consequences for our society. Traditional research often oversimplifies emotional tendencies and opinion…
Reddit administrators have generally struggled to prevent or contain such discourse for several reasons including: (1) the inability for a handful of human administrators to track and react to millions of posts and comments per day and (2)…
In an online social network, link recommendations are a way for users to discover relevant links to people they may know, thereby potentially increasing their engagement on the platform. However, the addition of links to a social network…
Instagram has been increasingly used as a source of information especially among the youth. As a result, political figures now leverage the platform to spread opinions and political agenda. We here analyze online discussions on Instagram,…
Most models of information diffusion online rely on the assumption that pieces of information spread independently from each other. However, several works pointed out the necessity of investigating the role of interactions in real-world…
The proliferation of social media platforms has afforded social scientists unprecedented access to vast troves of data on human interactions, facilitating the study of online behavior at an unparalleled scale. These platforms typically…
People in conversation entrain their linguistic behaviours through spontaneous alignment mechanisms [7] - both in face-to-face and computer-mediated communication (CMC) [8]. In CMC, one of the mechanisms through which linguistic entrainment…
While social media make it easy to connect with and access information from anyone, they also facilitate basic influence and unfriending mechanisms that may lead to segregated and polarized clusters known as "echo chambers." Here we study…
Online social networks have become primary means of communication. As they often exhibit undesirable effects such as hostility, polarisation or echo chambers, it is crucial to develop analytical tools that help us better understand them. In…