Related papers: From Curious Hashtags to Polarized Effect: Profili…
This paper provides a simple theoretical framework to evaluate the effect of key parameters of ranking algorithms, namely popularity and personalization parameters, on measures of platform engagement, misinformation and polarization. The…
Polarization is implicated in the erosion of democracy and the progression to violence, which makes the polarization properties of large algorithmic content selection systems (recommender systems) a matter of concern for peace and security.…
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,…
Understanding affective polarization in online discourse is crucial for evaluating the societal impact of social media interactions. This study presents a novel framework that leverages large language models (LLMs) and domain-informed…
There are some shreds of evidence that social opinion polarization leads to the breakup of the relationship, some in the scale of small communities, but others can divide large organizations or even a nation. The legacy methodology to…
Polarization in American politics has been extensively documented and analyzed for decades, and the phenomenon became all the more apparent during the 2016 presidential election, where Trump and Clinton depicted two radically different…
Ideological divisions in the United States have become increasingly prominent in daily communication. Accordingly, there has been much research on political polarization, including many recent efforts that take a computational perspective.…
Online polarization poses a growing challenge for democratic discourse, yet most computational social science research remains monolingual, culturally narrow, or event-specific. We introduce POLAR, a multilingual, multicultural, and…
State-sponsored information operations (IOs) increasingly influence global discourse on social media platforms, yet their emotional and rhetorical strategies remain inadequately characterized in scientific literature. This study presents…
Polarization in online communities is often studied through either language or interaction structure, but the two views are rarely connected in a unified measurement pipeline. Prior work links them by building interaction graphs from human…
The COVID-19 pandemic brought upon a massive wave of disinformation, exacerbating polarization in the increasingly divided landscape of online discourse. In this context, popular social media users play a major role, as they have the…
Polarization is a troubling phenomenon that can lead to societal divisions and hurt the democratic process. It is therefore important to develop methods to reduce it. We propose an algorithmic solution to the problem of reducing…
Political astroturfing and organised trolling are online malicious behaviours with significant real-world effects. Common approaches examining these phenomena focus on broad campaigns rather than the small groups responsible. To reveal…
It is widely understood that diffusion of and simultaneous interactions between narratives -- defined here as persistent point-of-view messaging -- significantly contributes to the shaping of political discourse and public opinion. In this…
Online social networks provide a medium for citizens to form opinions on different societal issues, and a forum for public discussion. They also expose users to viral content, such as breaking news articles. In this paper, we study the…
Online social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Wikis and Linkedin have made a great impact on the way we consume information in our day to day life. Now it has become increasingly important that we come across appropriate content from the…
The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a significant rise in the spread of misinformation on online platforms such as Twitter. Oftentimes this growth is blamed on the idea of the "echo chamber." However, the behavior said to…
Networks, representing attitudinal survey data, expose the structure of opinion-based groups. We make use of these network projections to identify the groups reliably through community detection algorithms and to examine…
The rapid expansion of cyberspace has greatly facilitated the strategic shift of traditional crimes to online platforms. This has included malicious actors, such as extremist organisations, making use of online networks to disseminate…
The conflict in Ukraine has been not only characterised by military engagement but also by a significant information war, with social media platforms like X, formerly known as Twitter playing an important role in shaping public perception.…