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This work examines the influence of misinformation and the role of AI agents, called bots, on social network platforms. To quantify the impact of misinformation, it proposes two new metrics based on attributes of tweet engagement and user…
Solicited public opinion surveys reach a limited subpopulation of willing participants and are expensive to conduct, leading to poor time resolution and a restricted pool of expert-chosen survey topics. In this study, we demonstrate that…
The daily exposure of social media users to propaganda and disinformation campaigns has reinvigorated the need to investigate the local and global patterns of diffusion of different (mis)information content on social media. Echo chambers…
A number of organizations ranging from terrorist groups such as ISIS to politicians and nation states reportedly conduct explicit campaigns to influence opinion on social media, posing a risk to democratic processes. There is thus a growing…
Online Social Networks represent a novel opportunity for political campaigns, revolutionising the paradigm of political communication. Nevertheless, many studies uncovered the presence of d/misinformation campaigns or of malicious…
This paper examines 3,517 Facebook ads created by Russia's Internet Research Agency (IRA) between June 2015 and August 2017 in its active measures disinformation campaign targeting the 2016 U.S. general election. We aimed to unearth the…
Opinion polls have been the bridge between public opinion and politicians in elections. However, developing surveys to disclose people's feedback with respect to economic issues is limited, expensive, and time-consuming. In recent years,…
Russian Internet Trolls use fake personas to spread disinformation through multiple social media streams. Given the increased frequency of this threat across social media platforms, understanding those operations is paramount in combating…
Over the past few years, there is a heated debate and serious public concerns regarding online content moderation, censorship, and the principle of free speech on the Web. To ease these concerns, social media platforms like Twitter and…
Online manipulation is a pressing concern for democracies, but the actions and strategies of coordinated inauthentic accounts, which have been used to interfere in elections, are not well understood. We analyze a five million-tweet…
Polarization, declining trust, and wavering support for democratic norms are pressing threats to U.S. democracy. Exposure to verified and quality news may lower individual susceptibility to these threats and make citizens more resilient to…
The use of language is innately political and often a vehicle of cultural identity as well as the basis for nation building. Here, we examine language choice and tweeting activity of Ukrainian citizens based on more than 4 million…
Social media platforms offer unprecedented opportunities for connectivity and exchange of ideas; however, they also serve as fertile grounds for the dissemination of disinformation. Over the years, there has been a rise in state-sponsored…
Modern information environments, especially social media, are highly complex systems that exceed individual processing capacities such as humans' limited attention. This environment/cognition mismatch can increase susceptibility to…
Twitter, a microblogging service, is todays most popular platform for communication in the form of short text messages, called Tweets. Users use Twitter to publish their content either for expressing concerns on information news or views on…
With the increasing use of online social networks as a source of news and information, the propensity for a rumor to disseminate widely and quickly poses a great concern, especially in disaster situations where users do not have enough time…
The global public sphere has changed dramatically over the past decades: a significant part of public discourse now takes place on algorithmically driven platforms owned by a handful of private companies. Despite its growing importance,…
Social media manipulation poses a significant threat to cognitive autonomy and unbiased opinion formation. Prior literature explored the relationship between online activity and emotional state, cognitive resources, sunlight and weather.…
The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine was accompanied by a large-scale, pro-Russian propaganda campaign on social media. However, the strategy behind the dissemination of propaganda has remained unclear, particularly how the online discourse…
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was accompanied by practices of information warfare, yet existing evidence is largely anecdotal while large-scale empirical evidence is lacking. Here, we analyze the spread of pro-Russian…