Related papers: Positive algorithmic bias cannot stop fragmentatio…

Homophily -- our tendency to surround ourselves with others who share our perspectives and opinions about the world -- is both a part of human nature and an organizing principle underpinning many of our digital social networks. However,…

Despite global connectivity, societies seem to be increasingly polarized and fragmented. This phenomenon is rooted in the underlying complex structure and dynamics of social systems. Far from homogeneously mixing or adopting conforming…

Collective decision-making arises from individual agents integrating their own personal observations with information obtained from social partners. In many biological systems that exhibit collective decision-making, the process by which…

Node copying is an important mechanism for network formation, yet most models assume uniform copying rules. Motivated by observations of heterogeneous triadic closure in real networks, we introduce the concept of a hidden network model - a…

Generative mechanisms which lead to empirically observed structure of networked systems from diverse fields like biology, technology and social sciences form a very important part of study of complex networks. The structure of many…

Social networks affect the diffusion of information, and thus have the potential to reduce or amplify inequality in access to opportunity. We show empirically that social networks often exhibit a much larger potential for unequal diffusion…

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…

Priority users (e.g., verified profiles on Twitter) are social media users whose content is promoted by recommendation algorithms. However, the impact of this heterogeneous user influence on opinion dynamics, such as polarization phenomena,…

Social networks amplify inequalities due to fundamental mechanisms of social tie formation such as homophily and triadic closure. These forces sharpen social segregation reflected in network fragmentation. Yet, little is known about what…

The community structure of a complex network can be determined by finding the partitioning of its nodes that maximizes modularity. Many of the proposed algorithms for doing this work by recursively bisecting the network. We show that this…

In networks with a minority and a majority community, it is well-studied that minorities are under-represented at the top of the social hierarchy. However, researchers are less clear about the representation of minorities from the lower…

Online social platforms have become central in the political debate. In this context, the existence of echo chambers is a problem of primary relevance. These clusters of like-minded individuals tend to reinforce prior beliefs, elicit…

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 networks are not static but rather constantly evolve in time. One of the elements thought to drive the evolution of social network structure is homophily - the need for individuals to connect with others who are similar to them. In…

A rich literature has explored the modeling of homophily and other forms of nonuniform mixing associated with individual-level covariates within the exponential family random graph (ERGM) framework. Such differential mixing does not fully…

Misinformation under the form of rumor, hoaxes, and conspiracy theories spreads on social media at alarming rates. One hypothesis is that, since social media are shaped by homophily, belief in misinformation may be more likely to thrive on…

Social media platforms are known to optimize user engagement with the help of algorithms. It is widely understood that this practice gives rise to echo chambers\emdash users are mainly exposed to opinions that are similar to their own. In…

The emergence of politically driven divisions in online discussion networks has attracted a wealth of literature, but also one which has thus far been largely limited to single country studies. Hence whilst there is good evidence that these…

Individuals of modern societies share ideas and participate in collective processes within a pervasive, variable, and mostly hidden ecosystem of content filtering technologies that determine what information we see online. Despite the…

Recent studies suggest that social media usage -- while linked to an increased diversity of information and perspectives for users -- has exacerbated user polarization on many issues. A popular theory for this phenomenon centers on the…