Related papers: Softening online extremes organically and at scale
Social media platforms are increasingly deploying complex interventions to help users detect false news. Labeling false news using techniques that combine crowd-sourcing with artificial intelligence (AI) offers a promising way to inform…
Misleading newsletters can shape individuals' perceptions, and pose a threat to societies; as we witnessed by lowering the severity of follow-up stay-at-home orders and burdening a significant challenge to the fight against COVID-19. In…
COVID-19 represents the most severe global crisis to date whose public conversation can be studied in real time. To do so, we use a data set of over 350 million tweets and retweets posted by over 26 million English speaking Twitter users…
Social media has a misinformation problem, and counterspeech -- fighting bad speech with more speech -- has been an ineffective solution. Here, we argue that bridging-based ranking -- an algorithmic approach to promoting content favored by…
Social media platforms like YouTube and Twitter play a key role in disseminating both reliable and unreliable information about climate change. This study analyses the topology of interactions in Twitter and their relation to cross-platform…
Many governments have managed to control their COVID-19 outbreak with a simple message: keep the effective '$R$ number' $R<1$ to prevent widespread contagion and flatten the curve. This raises the question whether a similar policy could…
Fake news on Social Media undermines democratic institutions and processes. Especially since 2016, researchers from many disciplines have focussed on ways to address the phenomenon. Much of the research focus to date has been on…
The rise of misinformation and fake news in online political discourse poses significant challenges to democratic processes and public engagement. While debunking efforts aim to counteract misinformation and foster fact-based dialogue,…
The 2024 U.S. Presidential Election unfolded within an information environment of unprecedented volatility, challenging citizens to navigate a torrent of rapidly evolving, often contradictory information while determining what to believe.…
The advent of the digital era provided a fertile ground for the development of virtual societies, complex systems influencing real-world dynamics. Understanding online human behavior and its relevance beyond the digital boundaries is still…
Social media platforms have had considerable impact on the real world especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Misinformation related to Covid-19 might have caused significant impact on the population specifically due to its association…
The COVID-19 pandemic has not only had severe political, economic, and societal effects, it has also affected media and communication systems in unprecedented ways. While traditional journalistic media has tried to adapt to the rapidly…
In recent years, scholars have raised concerns on the effects that unreliable news, or "fake news," has on our political sphere, and our democracy as a whole. For example, the propagation of fake news on social media is widely believed to…
Online social networks provide a platform for sharing information and free expression. However, these networks are also used for malicious purposes, such as distributing misinformation and hate speech, selling illegal drugs, and…
Social media platforms, increasingly used as news sources for varied data analytics, have transformed how information is generated and disseminated. However, the unverified nature of this content raises concerns about trustworthiness and…
We show that malicious COVID-19 content, including hate speech, disinformation, and misinformation, exploits the multiverse of online hate to spread quickly beyond the control of any individual social media platform. Machine learning topic…
Social media is transforming various aspects of offline life, from everyday decisions such as dining choices to the progression of conflicts. In this study, we propose a coupled modelling framework with an online social network layer to…
Users organize themselves into communities on web platforms. These communities can interact with one another, often leading to conflicts and toxic interactions. However, little is known about the mechanisms of interactions between…
Easier access to the internet and social media has made disseminating information through online sources very easy. Sources like Facebook, Twitter, online news sites and personal blogs of self-proclaimed journalists have become significant…
The rise of social media and online social networks has been a disruptive force in society. Opinions are increasingly shaped by interactions on online social media, and social phenomena including disagreement and polarization are now…