Related papers: Trollthrottle -- Raising the Cost of Astroturfing

We uncover a previously unknown, ongoing astroturfing attack on the popularity mechanisms of social media platforms: ephemeral astroturfing attacks. In this attack, a chosen keyword or topic is artificially promoted by coordinated and…

We argue that governments should mandate a three-tier anonymity framework on social-media platforms as a reactionary measure prompted by the ease-of-production of deepfakes and large-language-model-driven misinformation. The tiers are…

Online social media are complementing and in some cases replacing person-to-person social interaction and redefining the diffusion of information. In particular, microblogs have become crucial grounds on which public relations, marketing,…

Twitter bots amplify target content in a coordinated manner to make them appear popular, which is an astroturfing attack. Such attacks promote certain keywords to push them to Twitter trends to make them visible to a broader audience. Past…

Growing evidence points to recurring influence campaigns on social media, often sponsored by state actors aiming to manipulate public opinion on sensitive political topics. Typically, campaigns are performed through instrumented accounts,…

An-ever increasing number of social media websites, electronic newspapers and Internet forums allow visitors to leave comments for others to read and interact. This exchange is not free from participants with malicious intentions, which do…

Social media trolling is a powerful tactic to manipulate public opinion on issues with a high moral component. Troll farms, as evidenced in the past, created fabricated content to provoke or silence people to share their opinion on social…

It is a widely accepted fact that state-sponsored Twitter accounts operated during the 2016 US presidential election, spreading millions of tweets with misinformation and inflammatory political content. Whether these social media campaigns…

As human computation on crowdsourcing systems has become popular and powerful for performing tasks, malicious users have started misusing these systems by posting malicious tasks, propagating manipulated contents, and targeting popular web…

Online trolls increase social costs and cause psychological damage to individuals. With the proliferation of automated accounts making use of bots for trolling, it is difficult for targeted individual users to handle the situation both…

Livestreaming platforms have become increasingly popular in recent years as a means of sharing and advertising creative content. Popular content streamers who attract large viewership to their live broadcasts can earn a living by means of…

Online social media has become increasingly popular in recent years due to its ease of access and ability to connect with others. One of social media's main draws is its anonymity, allowing users to share their thoughts and opinions without…

Influencer Marketing generated $16 billion in 2022. Usually, the more popular influencers are paid more for their collaborations. Thus, many services were created to boost profiles' popularity metrics through bots or fake accounts. However,…

Massive amounts of contributed content -- including traditional literature, blogs, music, videos, reviews and tweets -- are available on the Internet today, with authors numbering in many millions. Textual information, such as product or…

Popular Internet services in recent years have shown that remarkable things can be achieved by harnessing the power of the masses using crowd-sourcing systems. However, crowd-sourcing systems can also pose a real challenge to existing…

Online platforms have completely transformed American social life. They have democratized publication, overthrown old gatekeepers, and given ordinary Americans a fresh voice in politics. But the system is beginning to falter. Control over…

Social media websites, electronic newspapers and Internet forums allow visitors to leave comments for others to read and interact. This exchange is not free from participants with malicious intentions, who troll others by positing messages…

The Internet and online forums such as Reddit have become an increasingly popular medium for citizens to engage in political conversations. However, the online disinhibition effect resulting from the ability to use pseudonymous identities…

There are different definitions of what a troll is. Certainly, a troll can be somebody who teases people to make them angry, or somebody who offends people, or somebody who wants to dominate any single discussion, or somebody who tries to…

Online crowdfunding has received a great deal of attention from entrepreneurs and policymakers as a promising avenue to fostering entrepreneurship and innovation. A notable aspect of this shift from an offline to an online setting is that…