Related papers: Softening online extremes organically and at scale
The 21st century has redefined the way we communicate, our concept of individual and group privacy, and the dynamics of acceptable behavioral norms. The messaging dynamics on Twitter, an internet social network, has opened new ways/modes of…
The large availability of user provided contents on online social media facilitates people aggregation around common interests, worldviews and narratives. However, in spite of the enthusiastic rhetoric about the so called {\em wisdom of…
Despite their playful purpose social media changed the way users access information, debate, and form their opinions. Recent studies, indeed, showed that users online tend to promote their favored narratives and thus to form polarized…
The wide adoption of social media platforms has brought about numerous benefits for communication and information sharing. However, it has also led to the rapid spread of misinformation, causing significant harm to individuals, communities,…
Social media is often criticized for amplifying toxic discourse and discouraging constructive conversations. But designing social media platforms to promote better conversations is inherently challenging. This paper asks whether simulating…
We empirically analyze five online communities: Friendster, Livejournal, Facebook, Orkut, Myspace, to identify causes for the decline of social networks. We define social resilience as the ability of a community to withstand changes. We do…
Today's social media platforms enable to spread both authentic and fake news very quickly. Some approaches have been proposed to automatically detect such "fake" news based on their content, but it is difficult to agree on universal…
The proliferation of harmful content shared online poses a threat to online information integrity and the integrity of discussion across platforms. Despite various moderation interventions adopted by social media platforms, researchers and…
Fads, product adoption, mobs, rumors, memes, and emergent norms are diverse social contagions that have been modeled as network cascades. Empirical study of these cascades is vulnerable to what we describe as the "opacity problem": the…
The Web consists of numerous Web communities, news sources, and services, which are often exploited by various entities for the dissemination of false information. Yet, we lack tools and techniques to effectively track the propagation of…
The massive spread of digital misinformation has been identified as a major global risk and has been alleged to influence elections and threaten democracies. Communication, cognitive, social, and computer scientists are engaged in efforts…
Online social platforms allow users to filter out content they do not like. According to selective exposure theory, people tend to view content they agree with more to get more self-assurance. This causes people to live in ideological…
The growing trend of sharing news/contents, through social media platforms and the World Wide Web has been seen to impact our perception of the truth, altering our views about politics, economics, relationships, needs and wants. This is…
Wildfires require governments to communicate under conditions of urgency, uncertainty, and intense public scrutiny, yet such communication now unfolds within a digitally mediated environment shaped by polarization and engagement-based…
Ensuring widespread public exposure to best-science guidance is crucial in a crisis, e.g. Covid-19, climate change. Mapping the emitter-receiver dynamics of Covid-19 guidance among 87 million Facebook users, we uncover a multi-sided battle…
Quantifying how individuals react to social influence is crucial for tackling collective political behavior online. While many studies of opinion in public forums focus on social feedback, they often overlook the potential for human…
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…
Echo chambers on social media are a significant problem that can elicit a number of negative consequences, most recently affecting the response to COVID-19. Echo chambers promote conspiracy theories about the virus and are found to be…
This study investigates the meta-issues surrounding social media, which, while theoretically designed to enhance social interactions and improve our social lives by facilitating the sharing of personal experiences and life events, often…
Content moderation is a widely used strategy to prevent the dissemination of irregular information on social media platforms. Despite extensive research on developing automated models to support decision-making in content moderation, there…