Related papers: Censorship in Democracy
The role of social media in promoting media pluralism was initially viewed as wholly positive. However, some governments are allegedly manipulating social media by hiring online commentators (also known as trolls) to spread propaganda and…
This paper examines the role of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) on Twitter regarding the Russo-Ukrainian war, distinguishing between genuine OSINT and deceptive misinformation efforts, termed "BULLSHINT." Utilizing a dataset spanning from…
News outlets are now more than ever incentivized to provide their audience with slanted news, while the intrinsic homophilic nature of online social media may exacerbate polarized opinions. Here, we propose a new dynamic latent space model…
US voters shared large volumes of polarizing political news and information in the form of links to content from Russian, WikiLeaks and junk news sources. Was this low quality political information distributed evenly around the country, or…
The ongoing Russo-Ukrainian conflict has been a subject of intense media coverage worldwide. Understanding the global narrative surrounding this topic is crucial for researchers that aim to gain insights into its multifaceted dimensions. In…
Public digital conversation around major sporting events takes place within a hybrid system in which journalists and the media compete with new intermediaries, including influencers, to gain greater visibility and engage with audiences.…
In the buildup to and in the weeks following the Russian Federation's invasion of Ukraine, Russian state media outlets output torrents of misleading and outright false information. In this work, we study this coordinated information…
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…
The coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has varied widely between Western, Russian, and Chinese media ecosystems with propaganda, disinformation, and narrative spins present in all three. By utilizing the normalized pointwise mutual…
We study how political polarization is reflected in the social media posts used by media outlets to promote their content online. In particular, we track the Twitter posts of several media outlets over the course of more than three years…
Journalists have incorporated social networks into their work as a standard tool, enhancing their ability to produce and disseminate information and making it easier for them to connect more directly with their audiences. However, this…
Expressions of dissent against authority are an important feature of most societies, and efforts to suppress such expressions are common. Modern digital communications, social media, and Internet surveillance and censorship technologies are…
Anti-vaccination views pervade online social media, fueling distrust in scientific expertise and increasing vaccine-hesitant individuals. While previous studies focused on specific countries, the COVID-19 pandemic brought the vaccination…
Efforts by foreign actors to influence public opinion have gained considerable attention because of their potential to impact democratic elections. Thus, the ability to identify and counter sources of disinformation is increasingly becoming…
We study how legislation that restricts speech can induce online self-censorship and alter online discourse, using the recent Hong Kong national security law as a case study. We collect a dataset of 7 million historical Tweets from Hong…
Telegram emerged as a crucial platform for both parties during the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Per its minimal policies for content moderation, Pro-Kremlin narratives and potential misinformation were spread on Telegram, while…
With the growth of online news over the past decade, empirical studies on political discourse and news consumption have focused on the phenomenon of filter bubbles and echo chambers. Yet recently, scholars have revealed limited evidence…
Over the past few years, there is a heated debate and serious public concerns regarding online content moderation, censorship, and the principle of free speech on the Web. To ease these concerns, social media platforms like Twitter and…
One of the key aspects of the United States democracy is free and fair elections that allow for a peaceful transfer of power from one President to the next. The 2016 US presidential election stands out due to suspected foreign influence…
This paper examines news consumption in response to a major polarizing event, and we use the May 2021 Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an example. We conduct a detailed analysis of the news consumption of more than eight thousand Twitter…