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In the era of social media, people frequently share their own opinions online on various issues and also in the way, get exposed to others' opinions. Be it for selective exposure of news feed recommendation algorithms or our own inclination…
Affective polarization, characterized by increased negativity and hostility towards opposing groups, has become a prominent feature of political discourse worldwide. Our study examines the presence of this type of polarization in a…
Counterspeech has gained attention as a strategy to reduce hate speech on social media. Although previous studies suggest that counterspeech can reduce hate speech, little is known about its effects on participation in online hate…
This paper investigates the communication styles and structures of Twitter (X) communities within the vaccination context. While mainstream research primarily focuses on the echo-chamber phenomenon, wherein certain ideas are reinforced and…
Echo chambers may exclude social media users from being exposed to other opinions, therefore, can cause rampant negative effects. Among abundant evidence are the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections conspiracy theories and polarization,…
Priority users (e.g., verified profiles on Twitter) are social media users whose content is promoted by recommendation algorithms. However, the impact of this heterogeneous user influence on opinion dynamics, such as polarization phenomena,…
Twitter is one of the most popular online micro-blogging and social networking platforms. This platform allows individuals to freely express opinions and interact with others regardless of geographic barriers. However, with the good that…
Community-level bans are a common tool against groups that enable online harassment and harmful speech. Unfortunately, the efficacy of community bans has only been partially studied and with mixed results. Here, we provide a flexible…
Online debates are often characterised by extreme polarisation and heated discussions among users. The presence of hate speech online is becoming increasingly problematic, making necessary the development of appropriate countermeasures. In…
Online platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, provide users with a rich set of features for sharing and consuming political information, expressing political opinions, and exchanging potentially contrary political views. In such…
Nowadays, social media is the ground for political debate and exchange of opinions. There is a significant amount of research that suggests that social media are highly polarized. A phenomenon that is commonly observed is the echo chamber…
In social networks, users often engage with like-minded peers. This selective exposure to opinions might result in echo chambers, i.e., political fragmentation and social polarization of user interactions. When echo chambers form, opinions…
We present the first large-scale comparative analysis of Truth Social and the most popular conservative Reddit communities, r/Conservative, r/conservatives, and r/Republican. Using topic modeling with FASTopic and LLM-assisted refinement,…
The prevalent perspective in quantitative research on opinion dynamics flattens the landscape of the online political discourse into a traditional left--right dichotomy. While this approach helps simplify the analysis and modeling effort,…
Vaccine hesitancy has been recognized as a major global health threat. Having access to any type of information in social media has been suggested as a potential powerful influence factor to hesitancy. Recent studies in other fields than…
When discussing difficult topics online, is it common to meaningfully engage with people from diverse perspectives? Why or why not? Could features of the online environment be redesigned to encourage civil conversation across difference? In…
Toxic comments are the top form of hate and harassment experienced online. While many studies have investigated the types of toxic comments posted online, the effects that such content has on people, and the impact of potential defenses, no…
Recently, there has been significant attention on online political incivility. While previous research suggests that uncivil political comments lead people to be less willing to see more comments on the same issue, two critical questions…
Polarized topics often spark discussion and debate on social media. Recent studies have shown that polarized debates have a specific clustered structure in the endorsement net- work, which indicates that users direct their endorsements…
As civil discourse increasingly takes place online, misinformation and the polarization of news shared in online communities have become ever more relevant concerns with real world harms across our society. Studying online news sharing at…