Related papers: Understanding Filter Bubbles and Polarization in S…

We investigate opinion dynamics and information spreading on networks under the influence of content filtering technologies. The filtering mechanism, present in many online social platforms, reduces individuals' exposure to disagreeing…

Social media platforms have transformed the dynamics of collective opinion formation, enabling rapid, large-scale interactions while simultaneously exposing online discourse to polarization and manipulation. Traditional models of opinion…

We present a many-body theory that explains and reproduces recent observations of population polarization dynamics, is supported by controlled human experiments, and addresses the controversy surrounding the Internet's impact. It predicts…

Recommender systems increasingly suffer from echo chambers and user homogenization, systemic distortions arising from the dynamic interplay between algorithmic recommendations and human behavior. While prior work has studied these phenomena…

Belief perseverance is the widely documented tendency of holding to a belief, even in the presence of contradicting evidence. In online environments, this tendency leads to heated arguments with users ``blocking'' each other. Introducing…

This work analyses surprising elections, and attempts to quantify the notion of surprise in elections. A voter is surprised if their estimate of the winner (assumed to be based on a combination of the preferences of their social connections…

Social-media platforms have created new ways for citizens to stay informed and participate in public debates. However, to enable a healthy environment for information sharing, social deliberation, and opinion formation, citizens need to be…

With rapid increase in online information consumption, especially via social media sites, there have been concerns on whether people are getting selective exposure to a biased subset of the information space, where a user is receiving more…

The rise of social media has fundamentally transformed how people engage in public discourse and form opinions. While these platforms offer unprecedented opportunities for democratic engagement, they have been implicated in increasing…

Opinion Dynamics is an interdisciplinary area of research. Psychology and Sociology have proposed models of how individuals form opinions and how social interactions influence this process. Socio-Physicists have interpreted patterns in…

Polarization is an increasingly worrying phenomenon within social media. Recent work has made it possible to detect and even quantify polarization. Nevertheless, the few existing metrics, although defined in a continuous space, often lead…

The explosive growth of social media has not only revolutionized communication but also brought challenges such as political polarization, misinformation, hate speech, and echo chambers. This dissertation employs computational social…

Social media have a great potential to improve information dissemination in our society, yet, they have been held accountable for a number of undesirable effects, such as polarization and filter bubbles. It is thus important to understand…

Many projects (both practical and academic) have designed algorithms to match users to content they will enjoy under the assumption that user's preferences and opinions do not change with the content they see. Evidence suggests that…

The landscape of information has experienced significant transformations with the rapid expansion of the internet and the emergence of online social networks. Initially, there was optimism that these platforms would encourage a culture of…

Unlike traditional media, online news platforms allow users to consume content that suits their tastes and to facilitate interactions with other people. However, as more personalized consumption of information and interaction with…

We explore a new mechanism to explain polarization phenomena in opinion dynamics in which agents evaluate alternative views on the basis of the social feedback obtained on expressing them. High support of the favored opinion in the social…

The theory of echo chambers, which suggests that online political discussions take place in conditions of ideological homogeneity, has recently gained popularity as an explanation for patterns of political polarization and radicalization…

The spread of information networks has not only made it easier for people to access a variety of information sources but also greatly enhanced the ability of individuals to disseminate information. Unfortunately, however, the problem of…

Online social networks have dramatically altered the landscape of public discourse, creating both opportunities for enhanced civic participation and risks of deepening social divisions. Prevalent approaches to studying online polarization…