3 papers
cs.LG2026
PRISM: LLM-Guided Semantic Clustering for High-Precision Topics
Connor Douglas, Utkucan Balci, Joseph Aylett-Bullock
In this paper, we propose Precision-Informed Semantic Modeling (PRISM), a structured topic modeling framework combining the benefits of rich representations captured by LLMs with t…
cs.SI2026
Roll in the Tanks! Measuring Left-wing Extremism on Reddit at Scale
Utkucan Balcı, Michael Sirivianos, Jeremy Blackburn
Social media's role in the spread and evolution of extremism is a focus of intense study. Online extremists have been involved in the dissemination of online hate, mis- and disinfo…
cs.SI2025
Exploring Left-Wing Extremism on the Decentralized Web: An Analysis of Lemmygrad.ml
Utkucan Balci, Michael Sirivianos, Jeremy Blackburn
This study investigates the presence of left-wing extremism on the Lemmygrad.ml instance of the decentralized social media platform Lemmy, from its launch in 2019 up to a month aft…