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Extreme polarization can undermine democracy by making compromise impossible and transforming politics into a zero-sum game. Ideological polarization - the extent to which political views are widely dispersed - is already strong among…
The flourishing of fake news is favored by recommendation algorithms of online social networks which, based on previous users activity, provide content adapted to their preferences and so create filter bubbles. We introduce an analytically…
Political polarization, a key driver of social fragmentation, has drawn increasing attention for its role in shaping online and offline discourse. Despite significant efforts, accurately measuring polarization within ideological…
Research across different disciplines has documented the expanding polarization in social media. However, much of it focused on the US political system or its culturally controversial topics. In this work, we explore polarization on Twitter…
We explore how the polarization around controversial topics evolves on Twitter - over a long period of time (2011 to 2016), and also as a response to major external events that lead to increased related activity. We find that increased…
In the political arena of social platforms, opposing factions of varying sizes show asymmetrical patterns, and elites and masses within these groups have divergent motivations and influence,challenging simplistic views of polarization. Yet,…
The term filter bubble has been coined to describe the situation of online users which---due to filtering algorithms---live in a personalised information universe biased towards their own interests.In this paper we use an agent-based…
In this paper, we will review some of the issues that have been raised by opinion dynamics theory to date. In particular, we conducted a hypothesis-based simulation using a socio-physical approach regarding the filter bubble phenomenon that…
The advent of social media platforms has revolutionized information consumption patterns, with individuals frequently engaging in these platforms for social interactions. This trend has fostered an environment where people gravitate towards…
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…
The effects of social media on critical issues, such as polarization and misinformation, are under scrutiny due to the disruptive consequences that these phenomena can have on our societies. Among the algorithms routinely used by social…
Social media influence online activity by recommending to users content strongly correlated with what they have preferred in the past. In this way they constrain users within filter bubbles that strongly limit their exposure to new or…
A central role in shaping the experience of users online is played by recommendation algorithms. On the one hand they help retrieving content that best suits users taste, but on the other hand they may give rise to the so called "filter…
Recommender systems can be found everywhere today, shaping our everyday experience whenever we're consuming content, ordering food, buying groceries online, or even just reading the news. Let's imagine we're in the process of building a…
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…
We investigate the dynamics of opinion formation on social networking platforms, focusing on how individual opinions, influenced by both social connections and platform algorithms, evolve. We model this process using a differential…
Since this century, the speed, availability, and plethora of online informational content have made it increasingly difficult for humans to keep an overview of real-world situations, build a personal opinion, and sometimes even decide on…
The flow of information reaching us via the online media platforms is optimized not by the information content or relevance but by popularity and proximity to the target. This is typically performed in order to maximise platform usage. As a…
Nowadays, recommendation systems have become crucial to online platforms, shaping user exposure by accurate preference modeling. However, such an exposure strategy can also reinforce users' existing preferences, leading to a notorious…
Social media are decentralized, interactive, and transformative, empowering users to produce and spread information to influence others. This has changed the dynamics of political communication that were previously dominated by traditional…