Related papers: Ideological discrepancy between publishers and new…
Social media platforms significantly influence ideological divisions by enabling users to select information that aligns with their beliefs and avoid opposing viewpoints. Analyzing approximately 47 million Facebook posts, this study…
An important challenge in the process of tracking and detecting the dissemination of misinformation is to understand the political gap between people that engage with the so called "fake news". A possible factor responsible for this gap is…
The Facebook Privacy-Protected Full URLs Dataset was released to enable independent, academic research on the impact of Facebook's platform on society while ensuring user privacy. The dataset has been used in several studies to analyze the…
Politics in different countries show diverse degrees of polarization, which tends to be stronger on social media, given how easy it became to connect and engage with like-minded individuals on the web. A way of reducing polarization would…
Content that drives engagement need not be the same content that drives willingness to pay. We study how polarizing content affects engagement (time on site) and commitment (subscriptions and retention) on a major news platform. We measure…
Health misinformation is believed to have contributed to vaccine hesitancy during the Covid-19 pandemic, highlighting concerns about the role of social media in polarization and social stability. While previous research has identified a…
The growing prevalence of fruitless disagreement threatens social cohesion and constructive public discourse. While polarised discussions often reflect distrust in the news, the link between disagreement and misinformation remains unclear.…
A great deal of empirical research has examined who falls for misinformation and why. Here, we introduce a formal game-theoretic model of engagement with news stories that captures the strategic interplay between (mis)information consumers…
Members of different political groups not only disagree about issues but also dislike and distrust each other. While social media can amplify this emotional divide -- called affective polarization by political scientists -- there is a lack…
Does polarization online reflect the state of polarization in society? We study ideological positions and attitudes on several issues in France, a country with documented issue nonalignment. We compare distributions on X/Twitter with a…
The extensive data generated on social media platforms allow us to gain insights over trending topics and public opinions. Additionally, it offers a window into user behavior, including their content engagement and news sharing habits. In…
Despite Facebook's central role in American civic life, a clear, evidence-based understanding of users' long-term information environments has remained elusive, hindering assessments of the platform's societal impact. This study addresses…
The rise of misinformation and fake news in online political discourse poses significant challenges to democratic processes and public engagement. While debunking efforts aim to counteract misinformation and foster fact-based dialogue,…
Online political hostility is pervasive, yet it remains unclear how toxicity varies across campaign issues and political ideology, and what psychosocial signals and framing accompany toxic expression online. In this work, we present a…
Unlike traditional media, online news platforms allow users to consume content that suits their tastes and to facilitate interactions with other people. However, as more personalized consumption of information and interaction with…
Nowadays users get informed and shape their opinion through social media. However, the disintermediated access to contents does not guarantee quality of information. Selective exposure and confirmation bias, indeed, have been shown to play…
The present work proposes the use of social media as a tool for better understanding the relationship between a journalists' social network and the content they produce. Specifically, we ask: what is the relationship between the ideological…
If popular online platforms systematically expose their users to partisan and unreliable news, they could potentially contribute to societal issues like rising political polarization. This concern is central to the echo chamber and filter…
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…
Selective exposure, individuals' inclination to seek out information that supports their beliefs while avoiding information that contradicts them, plays an important role in the emergence of polarization and echo chambers. In the political…