Related papers: Toxic behavior silences online political conversat…
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…
Understanding social interaction within groups is key to analyzing online communities. Most current work focuses on structural properties: who talks to whom, and how such interactions form larger network structures. The interactions…
Online platforms play a relevant role in the creation and diffusion of false or misleading news. Concerningly, the COVID-19 pandemic is shaping a communication network - barely considered in the literature - which reflects the emergence of…
This paper studies how the linguistic components of blogposts collected from Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblogging platform, might affect the blogposts' likelihood of being censored. Our results go along with King et al. (2013)'s Collective…
Detecting online toxicity has always been a challenge due to its inherent subjectivity. Factors such as the context, geography, socio-political climate, and background of the producers and consumers of the posts play a crucial role in…
Humans make decisions based on the information they obtain from several major sources, among which the comments of others in Internet forums play an increasing role. Such forums cover a wide spectrum of topics and represent an essential…
Political polarization appears to be on the rise, as measured by voting behavior, general affect towards opposing partisans and their parties, and contents posted and consumed online. Research over the years has focused on the role of the…
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…
Climate change poses a global threat to public health, food security, and economic stability. Addressing it requires evidence-based policies and a nuanced understanding of how the threat is perceived by the public, particularly within…
Polarization is an increasingly worrying phenomenon within social media. Recent work has made it possible to detect and even quantify polarization. Nevertheless, the few existing metrics, although defined in a continuous space, often lead…
Media outlets and political campaigners recognise social media as a means for widely disseminating news and opinions. In particular, Twitter is used by political groups all over the world to spread political messages, engage their…
Social networks play an important role in people's daily socialization, particularly through social media platforms, which have become key channels for communication and information dissemination. The digital ecosystem does not only evolve…
Large-scale manipulations on social media have two important characteristics: (i) use of propaganda to influence others, and (ii) adoption of coordinated behavior to spread it and to amplify its impact. Despite the connection between them,…
The spread of inaccurate and misleading information may alter behaviours and complicate crisis management, especially during an emergency like the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper aims to investigate information diffusion during the COVID-19…
Artificial intelligence (AI)-powered recommender systems play a crucial role in determining the content that users are exposed to on social media platforms. However, the behavioural patterns of these systems are often opaque, complicating…
The rich and dynamic information environment of social media provides researchers, policy makers, and entrepreneurs with opportunities to learn about social phenomena in a timely manner. However, using these data to understand social…
Online social networks are used to diffuse opinions and ideas among users, enabling a faster communication and a wider audience. The way in which opinions are conditioned by social interactions is usually called social influence. Social…
In the process of enacting or introducing a new policy, policymakers frequently consider the population's responses. These considerations are critical for effective governance. There are numerous methods to gauge the ground sentiment from a…
The increased use of online social networks for the dissemination of information comes with the misuse of the internet for cyberbullying, cybercrime, spam, vandalism, amongst other things. To proactively identify abuse in the networks, we…
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…