Related papers: Extremism & Whataboutism: A Case Study on Bangalor…
There are several opinion dynamics models where extremism is defined as part of their characteristics. However, the way extremism is implemented in each model does not correspond to equivalent definitions. While some models focus on one…
In recent years researchers have gravitated to social media platforms, especially Twitter, as fertile ground for empirical analysis of social phenomena. Social media provides researchers access to trace data of interactions and discourse…
How do news sources tackle controversial issues? In this work, we take a data-driven approach to understand how controversy interplays with emotional expression and biased language in the news. We begin by introducing a new dataset of…
A positive phrase or a sentence with an underlying negative motive is usually defined as sarcasm that is widely used in today's social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. In recent times active users in social media…
Hate and extremism cannot be controlled globally without understanding how they operate at scale. Both have escalated dramatically during the Israel-Hamas and Ukraine-Russia wars. Here we show how the online hate-extremism system is now…
Intelligence analysts face a difficult problem: distinguishing extremist rhetoric from potential extremist violence. Many are content to express abuse against some target group, but only a few indicate a willingness to engage in violence.…
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 live in an age of information abundance but know little about how this influences our opinions or attitudes. A common expectation is that people consulting numerous pieces of information, well balancing the different sides of an issue,…
Despite decades of anti-caste efforts, sociocultural practices that marginalize lower-caste groups in India remain prevalent and have even proliferated with the use of social media. This paper examines how groups engaged in caste-based…
We develop an equilibrium theory of attention and politics. In a spatial model of electoral competition where candidates have varying policy preferences, we examine what kinds of political behaviors capture voters' limited attention and how…
Most of the information operations involve users who may foster polarization and distrust toward science and mainstream journalism, without these users being conscious of their role. Gab is well known to be an extremist-friendly platform…
Coordinated campaigns in the digital realm have become an increasingly important area of study due to their potential to cause political polarization and threats to security through real-world protests and riots. In this paper, we introduce…
The viral video documenting the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin inspired nation-wide protests that brought national attention to widespread racial injustice and biased policing practices towards black…
Radicalization is the process by which people come to adopt increasingly extreme political or religious ideologies. While radical thinking is by no means problematic in itself, it becomes a threat to national security when it leads to…
WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in the world. Due to its popularity, WhatsApp has become a powerful and cheap tool for political campaigning being widely used during the 2019 Indian general election, where it was used to connect…
Ad hominem attacks are those that target some feature of a person's character instead of the position the person is maintaining. These attacks are harmful because they propagate implicit biases and diminish a person's credibility. Since…
Recent advancements in technology have led to a boost in social media usage which has ultimately led to large amounts of user-generated data which also includes hateful and offensive speech. The language used in social media is often a…
Against a backdrop of tensions related to EU membership, we find levels of online abuse toward UK MPs reach a new high. Race and religion have become pressing topics globally, and in the UK this interacts with "Brexit" and the rise of…
In the digital age, hate speech poses a threat to the functioning of social media platforms as spaces for public discourse. Top-down approaches to moderate hate speech encounter difficulties due to conflicts with freedom of expression and…
Culture moderates the way individuals perceive and express mental distress. Current understandings of mental health expressions on social media, however, are predominantly derived from WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and…