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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…
During the COVID-19 pandemic, health-related misinformation and harmful content shared online had a significant adverse effect on society. To mitigate this adverse effect, mainstream social media platforms employed soft moderation…
Search engines (SEs) and large language models (LLMs) are central to political information access, yet their algorithmic decisions and potential underlying biases remain underexplored. We developed a standardized, privacy-preserving,…
We report the first direct comparisons of multiple alternative social media algorithms on multiple platforms on outcomes of societal interest. We used a browser extension to modify which posts were shown to desktop social media users,…
The emergence of generative AI chatbots such as ChatGPT has prompted growing public and academic interest in their role as informal mental health support tools. While early rule-based systems have been around for several years, large…
The political requires a forum for its deliberation and Habermas has located it in the public spheres. Originally, mass media's role was one of a facilitator of these debates. However, under the immense pressures of free market competition…
Adolescents spend an increasing amount of their time in digital environments where their still-developing cognitive capacities leave them unable to recognize or resist commercial persuasion. Article 28(2) of the DSA responds to this…
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…
On July 13, 2024, at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania, someone attempted to assassinate Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump. This attempt sparked a large-scale discussion on social media. We collected posts from X (formerly known…
This article presents a novel approach for learning low-dimensional distributed representations of users in online social networks. Existing methods rely on the network structure formed by the social relationships among users to extract…
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…
This study proposes a novel method to understand the factors affecting individuals' perception of transport accessibility, socioeconomic disparity, and public infrastructure. As opposed to the time consuming and expensive survey-based…
Twitter has become a pivotal platform for conducting information operations (IOs), particularly during high-stakes political events. In this study, we analyze over a million tweets about the 2024 U.S. presidential election to explore an…
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'…
Social media platforms are often blamed for exacerbating political polarization and worsening public dialogue. Many claim that hyperpartisan users post pernicious content, slanted to their political views, inciting contentious and toxic…
The argument for persistent social media influence campaigns, often funded by malicious entities, is gaining traction. These entities utilize instrumented profiles to disseminate divisive content and disinformation, shaping public…
Social media platforms play an important role in democratic processes. During the 2019 General Elections of India, political parties and politicians widely used Twitter to share their ideals, advocate their agenda and gain popularity.…
With the significant increase in users on social media platforms, a new means of political campaigning has appeared. Twitter and Facebook are now notable campaigning tools during elections. Indeed, the candidates and their parties now take…
TikTok has skyrocketed in popularity over recent years, especially among younger audiences. However, there are public concerns about the potential of this platform to promote and amplify harmful content. This study presents the first…
Using nationally representative data from the 2020 and 2024 American National Election Studies (ANES), this paper traces how the U.S. social media landscape has shifted across platforms, demographics, and politics. Overall platform use has…