Related papers: Subtle Censorship via Adversarial Fakeness in Kyrg…

Unlike the more observable phenomenon of group opinion reinforcement, self-censorship online has received comparatively less attention. Our goal in this work is to dissect the phenomena of self-censorship and to examine the implications of…

Expressions of dissent against authority are an important feature of most societies, and efforts to suppress such expressions are common. Modern digital communications, social media, and Internet surveillance and censorship technologies are…

Fake news on Social Media undermines democratic institutions and processes. Especially since 2016, researchers from many disciplines have focussed on ways to address the phenomenon. Much of the research focus to date has been on…

The emergence of social media has largely eased the way people receive information and participate in public discussions. However, in countries with strict regulations on discussions in the public space, social media is no exception. To…

Censorship and the distribution of false information, tools used to manipulate what users see and believe, are seemingly at opposite ends of the information access spectrum. Most previous work has examined them in isolation and within…

Censorship, anti-censorship, and self-censorship in an authoritarian regime have been extensively studies, yet the relationship between these intertwined factors is not well understood. In this paper, we report results of a large-scale…

The proliferation of fake news on social media has opened up new directions of research for timely identification and containment of fake news, and mitigation of its widespread impact on public opinion. While much of the earlier research…

Social media platforms provide a rich environment for analyzing user behavior. Recently, deep learning-based methods have been a mainstream approach for social media analysis models involving complex patterns. However, these methods are…

For Iranians and the Iranian diaspora, the Farsi Twittersphere provides an important alternative to state media and an outlet for political discourse. But this understudied online space has become an opinion manipulation battleground, with…

Misinformation poses a growing global threat to institutional trust, democratic stability, and public decision-making. While prior research has often portrayed social media as a channel for spreading falsehoods, less is known about the…

Social media for news consumption is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, its low cost, easy access, and rapid dissemination of information lead people to seek out and consume news from social media. On the other hand, it enables the wide…

Censorship in social media has been well studied and provides insight into how governments stifle freedom of expression online. Comparatively less (or no) attention has been paid to detecting (self) censorship in traditional media (e.g.,…

This thesis addresses two paradoxes: (1) why empirical studies find that fake news represent only a small share of the information consulted and shared on social media despite the absence of editorial control or journalistic norms, and (2)…

The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified numerous social issues that warrant academic investigation. Although information dissemination has been extensively studied, the silenced voices and censored content also merit attention due to their…

Easier access to the internet and social media has made disseminating information through online sources very easy. Sources like Facebook, Twitter, online news sites and personal blogs of self-proclaimed journalists have become significant…

In the past few years, the research community has dedicated growing interest to the issue of false news circulating on social networks. The widespread attention on detecting and characterizing false news has been motivated by considerable…

Undoubtedly, the Internet has become one of the most important conduits to information for the general public. Nonetheless, Internet access can be and has been limited systematically or blocked completely during political events in numerous…

Social media provides an extended space for collective action, as netizens leverage it as a tool for claim-making and for demanding the dividends of governance. However, political regimes often greet expanding use of social media with…

The concept of truth, as a public good is the production of a collective understanding, which emerges from a complex network of social interactions. The recent impact of social networks on shaping the perception of truth in political arena…

Communication on social media platforms is not only culturally and politically relevant, it is also increasingly widespread across societies. Users not only communicate via social media platforms, but also search specifically for…