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Online social media are key platforms for the public to discuss political issues. As a result, researchers have used data from these platforms to analyze public opinions and forecast election results. Recent studies reveal the existence of…
Polls posted on social media have emerged in recent years as an important tool for estimating public opinion, e.g., to gauge public support for business decisions and political candidates in national elections. Here, we examine nearly two…
Following the 2016 US presidential election, there has been an increased focus on politically-motivated manipulation of mass-user behavior on social media platforms. Since a large volume of political discussion occurs on these platforms,…
As social media has permeated large parts of the population it simultaneously has become a way to reach many people e.g. with political messages. One way to efficiently reach those people is the application of automated computer programs…
The dynamics and influence of fake news on Twitter during the 2016 US presidential election remains to be clarified. Here, we use a dataset of 171 million tweets in the five months preceding the election day to identify 30 million tweets,…
Online social media represent an oftentimes unique source of information, and having access to reliable and unbiased content is crucial, especially during crises and contentious events. We study the spread of propaganda and misinformation…
The daily exposure of social media users to propaganda and disinformation campaigns has reinvigorated the need to investigate the local and global patterns of diffusion of different (mis)information content on social media. Echo chambers…
Social media platforms offer unprecedented opportunities for connectivity and exchange of ideas; however, they also serve as fertile grounds for the dissemination of disinformation. Over the years, there has been a rise in state-sponsored…
Societies are complex systems which tend to polarize into sub-groups of individuals with dramatically opposite perspectives. This phenomenon is reflected -- and often amplified -- in online social networks where, however, humans are no more…
Twitter is increasingly used for political, advertising and marketing campaigns, where the main aim is to influence users to support specific causes, individuals or groups. We propose a novel methodology for mining and analyzing Twitter…
Polarization, declining trust, and wavering support for democratic norms are pressing threats to U.S. democracy. Exposure to verified and quality news may lower individual susceptibility to these threats and make citizens more resilient to…
Social media platforms attempting to curb abuse and misinformation have been accused of political bias. We deploy neutral social bots who start following different news sources on Twitter, and track them to probe distinct biases emerging…
Online manipulation is a pressing concern for democracies, but the actions and strategies of coordinated inauthentic accounts, which have been used to interfere in elections, are not well understood. We analyze a five million-tweet…
Online Social Networks represent a novel opportunity for political campaigns, revolutionising the paradigm of political communication. Nevertheless, many studies uncovered the presence of d/misinformation campaigns or of malicious…
Radical right influencers routinely use social media to spread highly divisive, disruptive and anti-democratic messages. Assessing and countering the challenge that such content poses is crucial for ensuring that online spaces remain open,…
Targeted advertising is meant to improve the efficiency of matching advertisers to their customers. However, targeted advertising can also be abused by malicious advertisers to efficiently reach people susceptible to false stories, stoke…
US voters shared large volumes of polarizing political news and information in the form of links to content from Russian, WikiLeaks and junk news sources. Was this low quality political information distributed evenly around the country, or…
In recent years, Twitter has seen a proliferation of automated accounts or bots that send spam, offer clickbait, compromise security using malware, and attempt to skew public opinion. Previous research estimates that around 9% to 17% of…
Amidst widespread reports of digital influence operations during major elections, policymakers, scholars, and journalists have become increasingly interested in the political impact of social media 'bots.' Most recently, platform companies…
A very large number of people use Online Social Networks daily. Such platforms thus become attractive targets for agents that seek to gain access to the attention of large audiences, and influence perceptions or opinions. Botnets,…