Related papers: Softening online extremes organically and at scale
We present a minimal yet empirically-grounded theory for the spread of online harms (e.g. misinformation, hate) across current multi-platform social media and future Metaverses. New physics emerges from the interplay between the intrinsic…
This paper aims to build an actionable framework for permissible online content moderation to combat misinformation. Often strong content moderation policies are invoked when misinformation causes harm. By adopting Mill's ethical framework,…
Societies are complex systems which tend to polarize into sub-groups of individuals with dramatically opposite perspectives. This phenomenon is reflected -- and often amplified -- in online social networks where, however, humans are no more…
The explosive growth of social media has not only revolutionized communication but also brought challenges such as political polarization, misinformation, hate speech, and echo chambers. This dissertation employs computational social…
Understanding the emergence of extreme opinions and in what kind of environment they might become less extreme is a central theme in our modern globalized society. A model combining continuous opinions and observed discrete actions (CODA)…
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…
The rise of social media has enabled the widespread propagation of fake news, text that is published with an intent to spread misinformation and sway beliefs. Rapidly detecting fake news, especially as new events arise, is important to…
Since the proliferation of social media usage, hate speech has become a major crisis. Hateful content can spread quickly and create an environment of distress and hostility. Further, what can be considered hateful is contextual and varies…
Recent years have seen a marked increase in the spread of misinformation, a phenomenon which has been accelerated and amplified by social media such as Facebook and Twitter. While some actors spread misinformation to push a specific agenda,…
Many models have been proposed to explain opinion formation in groups of individuals; most of these models study opinion propagation as the interaction between nodes/agents in a social network. Opinion formation is a complex process and a…
As an alternative to Twitter and other centralized social networks, the Fediverse is growing in popularity. The recent, and polemical, takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk has exacerbated this trend. The Fediverse includes a growing number of…
The rise in eating disorders, a condition with serious health complications, has been linked to the proliferation of idealized body images on social media platforms. However, the relationship between social media and eating disorders is…
The emergence of politically driven divisions in online discussion networks has attracted a wealth of literature, but also one which has thus far been largely limited to single country studies. Hence whilst there is good evidence that these…
Social media is a modern person's digital voice to project and engage with new ideas and mobilise communities $\unicode{x2013}$ a power shared with extremists. Given the societal risks of unvetted content-moderating algorithms for…
We report the first direct comparisons of multiple alternative social media algorithms on multiple platforms on outcomes of societal interest. We used a browser extension to modify which posts were shown to desktop social media users,…
Social media platforms have traditionally relied on internal moderation teams and partnerships with independent fact-checking organizations to identify and flag misleading content. Recently, however, platforms including X (formerly Twitter)…
The spreading of virus infection is here simulated over artificial human networks. Here, the real-space urban life of people is modeled as a scale-free network with constraints. A scale-free network has been adopted for modeling on-line…
Harmful or abusive online content has been increasing over time, raising concerns for social media platforms, government agencies, and policymakers. Such harmful or abusive content can have major negative impact on society, e.g.,…
Social media platforms offer flagging, a technical feature that empowers users to report inappropriate posts or bad actors to reduce online harm. The deceptively simple flagging interfaces on nearly all major social media platforms disguise…
Support for extremist entities - whether from the far right, or far left - often manages to survive globally online despite significant external pressure, and may ultimately inspire violent acts by individuals having no obvious prior…