9 papers
Gender-based discrepancies in the algorithmic delivery of political ads on social media
Dominik Bär, Francesco Corso, Gianmarco De Francisci Morales +2
Social media has become a key channel for political advertising during election campaigns. However, algorithmic biases in the delivery of these ads may distort the public's exposur…
Among Us: Language of Conspiracy Theorists on Mainstream Reddit
Francesco Corso, Giuseppe Russo, Francesco Pierri +1
The interaction between fringe subcultures and mainstream online communities poses significant challenges for understanding discourse on social media. In this work, we investigate…
Effects of Algorithmic Visibility on Conspiracy Communities: Reddit after Epstein's 'Suicide'
Asja Attanasio, Francesco Corso, Gianmarco De Francisci Morales +1
Following the death of Jeffrey Epstein, the subreddit r/conspiracy experienced a significant visibility shock that brought mainstream users into direct contact with established con…
Simulating Online Social Media Conversations on Controversial Topics Using AI Agents Calibrated on Real-World Data
Elisa Composta, Nicolo' Fontana, Francesco Corso +1
Online social networks offer a valuable lens to analyze both individual and collective phenomena. Researchers often use simulators to explore controlled scenarios, and the integrat…
Do Androids Dream of Unseen Puppeteers? Probing for a Conspiracy Mindset in Large Language Models
Francesco Corso, Francesco Pierri, Gianmarco De Francisci Morales
In this paper, we investigate whether Large Language Models (LLMs) exhibit conspiratorial tendencies, whether they display sociodemographic biases in this domain, and how easily th…
Towards an Automated Framework to Audit Youth Safety on TikTok
Linda Xue, Francesco Corso, Nicolo' Fontana +3
This paper investigates the effectiveness of TikTok's enforcement mechanisms for limiting the exposure of harmful content to youth accounts. We collect over 7000 videos, classify t…