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Social media data presents AI researchers with overlapping obligations under the GDPR, copyright law, and platform terms -- yet existing frameworks fail to integrate these regulatory domains, leaving researchers without unified guidance. We…
Using APIs to develop software applications is the norm. APIs help developers to build applications faster as they do not need to reinvent the wheel. It is therefore important for developers to understand the APIs that they plan to use.…
Social media platforms face heightened risks during major political events; yet, how platforms adapt their moderation practices in response remains unclear. The Digital Services Act Transparency Database offers an unprecedented opportunity…
Wikidata is currently the largest open knowledge graph on the web, encompassing over 120 million entities. It integrates data from various domain-specific databases and imports a substantial amount of content from Wikipedia, while also…
Voice Assistants (VA) such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant are quickly and seamlessly integrating into people's daily lives. The increased reliance on VA services raises privacy concerns such as the leakage of private conversations and…
Algorithms of online platforms are required under the Digital Services Act (DSA) to comply with specific obligations concerning algorithmic transparency, user protection and privacy. To verify compliance with these requirements, DSA…
The Digital Services Act (DSA) introduces harmonized rules for content moderation and platform governance in the European Union, mandating robust compliance mechanisms, particularly for very large online platforms and search engines. This…
The European Commission recently introduced new regulation to harmonize transparency reporting of large online platforms under the Digital Services Act (DSA). Here, we present the first systematic evaluation of transparency reporting data…
Wikipedia is the largest online encyclopedia, used by algorithms and web users as a central hub of reliable information on the web. The quality and reliability of Wikipedia content is maintained by a community of volunteer editors. Machine…
''TikTok, Do Your Thing'' is a viral trend where users attempt to identify strangers they see in public via information crowd-sourcing. The trend started as early as 2021 and users typically engage with it for romantic purposes (similar to…
Online platforms play an increasingly important role in shaping democracy by influencing the distribution of political information to the electorate. In recent years, political campaigns have spent heavily on the platforms' algorithmic…
Short-format videos have exploded on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Despite this, the research community lacks large-scale empirical studies into how people engage with short-format videos and the role of recommendation…
The openness and influence of video-sharing platforms (VSPs) such as YouTube and TikTok attracted creators to share videos on various social issues. Although social issue videos (SIVs) affect public opinions and breed misinformation, how…
There is a growing discussion about social media feeds being increasingly filled with AI-generated content. Due to its visual plausibility, low cost, and fast production speed, AI-generated content is said to be highly effective in "gaming…
TikTok, a widely-used social media app boasting over a billion monthly active users, requires effective app quality assurance for its intricate features. Feature testing is crucial in achieving this goal. However, the multi-user interactive…
Social media platforms curate access to information and opportunities, and so play a critical role in shaping public discourse today. The opaque nature of the algorithms these platforms use to curate content raises societal questions. Prior…
Compliance with the European Union's Platform-to-Business (P2B) Regulation is challenging for online platforms, and assessing their compliance can be difficult for public authorities. This is partly due to the lack of automated tools for…
Because of its willingness to share data with academia and industry, Twitter has been the primary social media platform for scientific research as well as for consulting businesses and governments in the last decade. In recent years, a…
The analysis of the privacy properties of Privacy-Preserving Ads APIs is an area of research that has received strong interest from academics, industry, and regulators. Despite this interest, the empirical study of these methods is hindered…
Intelligent algorithms increasingly shape the content we encounter and engage with online. TikTok's For You feed exemplifies extreme algorithm-driven curation, tailoring the stream of video content almost exclusively based on users'…