210 citations · 1k across the 63 of their papers we have counts for
28 papers · 1 filter
Unraveling the Web of Disinformation: Exploring the Larger Context of State-Sponsored Influence Campaigns on Twitter
Mohammad Hammas Saeed, Shiza Ali, Pujan Paudel +2
Social media platforms offer unprecedented opportunities for connectivity and exchange of ideas; however, they also serve as fertile grounds for the dissemination of disinformation…
"Here's Your Evidence": False Consensus in Public Twitter Discussions of COVID-19 Science
Alexandros Efstratiou, Marina Efstratiou, Satrio Yudhoatmojo +2
The COVID-19 pandemic brought about an extraordinary rate of scientific papers on the topic that were discussed among the general public, although often in biased or misinformed wa…
Beyond Fish and Bicycles: Exploring the Varieties of Online Women's Ideological Spaces
Utkucan Balci, Chen Ling, Emiliano De Cristofaro +3
The Internet has been instrumental in connecting under-represented and vulnerable groups of people. Platforms built to foster social interaction and engagement have enabled histori…
Non-Polar Opposites: Analyzing the Relationship Between Echo Chambers and Hostile Intergroup Interactions on Reddit
Alexandros Efstratiou, Jeremy Blackburn, Tristan Caulfield +3
Previous research has documented the existence of both online echo chambers and hostile intergroup interactions. In this paper, we explore the relationship between these two phenom…
Why So Toxic? Measuring and Triggering Toxic Behavior in Open-Domain Chatbots
Wai Man Si, Michael Backes, Jeremy Blackburn +4
Chatbots are used in many applications, e.g., automated agents, smart home assistants, interactive characters in online games, etc. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure they do not b…
Feels Bad Man: Dissecting Automated Hateful Meme Detection Through the Lens of Facebook's Challenge
Catherine Jennifer, Fatemeh Tahmasbi, Jeremy Blackburn +3
Internet memes have become a dominant method of communication; at the same time, however, they are also increasingly being used to advocate extremism and foster derogatory beliefs.…
Slapping Cats, Bopping Heads, and Oreo Shakes: Understanding Indicators of Virality in TikTok Short Videos
Chen Ling, Jeremy Blackburn, Emiliano De Cristofaro +1
Short videos have become one of the leading media used by younger generations to express themselves online and thus a driving force in shaping online culture. In this context, TikT…
An Early Look at the Gettr Social Network
Pujan Paudel, Jeremy Blackburn, Emiliano De Cristofaro +2
This paper presents the first data-driven analysis of Gettr, a new social network platform launched by former US President Donald Trump's team. Among other things, we find that use…
"I'm a Professor, which isn't usually a dangerous job": Internet-Facilitated Harassment and its Impact on Researchers
Periwinkle Doerfler, Andrea Forte, Emiliano De Cristofaro +3
While the Internet has dramatically increased the exposure that research can receive, it has also facilitated harassment against scholars. To understand the impact that these attac…
A Multi-Platform Analysis of Political News Discussion and Sharing on Web Communities
Yuping Wang, Savvas Zannettou, Jeremy Blackburn +3
The news ecosystem has become increasingly complex, encompassing a wide range of sources with varying levels of trustworthiness, and with public commentary giving different spins t…
The Gospel According to Q: Understanding the QAnon Conspiracy from the Perspective of Canonical Information
Antonis Papasavva, Max Aliapoulios, Cameron Ballard +4
The QAnon conspiracy theory claims that a cabal of (literally) blood-thirsty politicians and media personalities are engaged in a war to destroy society. By interpreting cryptic "d…
"It is just a flu": Assessing the Effect of Watch History on YouTube's Pseudoscientific Video Recommendations
Kostantinos Papadamou, Savvas Zannettou, Jeremy Blackburn +3
The role played by YouTube's recommendation algorithm in unwittingly promoting misinformation and conspiracy theories is not entirely understood. Yet, this can have dire real-world…
Do Platform Migrations Compromise Content Moderation? Evidence from r/The_Donald and r/Incels
Manoel Horta Ribeiro, Shagun Jhaver, Savvas Zannettou +4
When toxic online communities on mainstream platforms face moderation measures, such as bans, they may migrate to other platforms with laxer policies or set up their own dedicated…
Reading In-Between the Lines: An Analysis of Dissenter
Erik Rye, Jeremy Blackburn, Robert Beverly
Efforts by content creators and social networks to enforce legal and policy-based norms, e.g. blocking hate speech and users, has driven the rise of unrestricted communication plat…
Understanding the Use of Fauxtography on Social Media
Yuping Wang, Fatemeh Tahmasbi, Jeremy Blackburn +5
Despite the influence that image-based communication has on online discourse, the role played by images in disinformation is still not well understood. In this paper, we present th…
A First Look at Zoombombing
Chen Ling, Utkucan Balcı, Jeremy Blackburn +1
Online meeting tools like Zoom and Google Meet have become central to our professional, educational, and personal lives. This has opened up new opportunities for large scale harass…
"Is it a Qoincidence?": An Exploratory Study of QAnon on Voat
Antonis Papasavva, Jeremy Blackburn, Gianluca Stringhini +2
Online fringe communities offer fertile grounds for users seeking and sharing ideas fueling suspicion of mainstream news and conspiracy theories. Among these, the QAnon conspiracy…
"How over is it?" Understanding the Incel Community on YouTube
Kostantinos Papadamou, Savvas Zannettou, Jeremy Blackburn +3
YouTube is by far the largest host of user-generated video content worldwide. Alas, the platform has also come under fire for hosting inappropriate, toxic, and hateful content. One…
The Evolution of the Manosphere Across the Web
Manoel Horta Ribeiro, Jeremy Blackburn, Barry Bradlyn +5
In this paper, we present a large-scale characterization of the Manosphere, a conglomerate of Web-based misogynist movements roughly focused on "men's issues," which has seen signi…
Raiders of the Lost Kek: 3.5 Years of Augmented 4chan Posts from the Politically Incorrect Board
Antonis Papasavva, Savvas Zannettou, Emiliano De Cristofaro +2
This paper presents a dataset with over 3.3M threads and 134.5M posts from the Politically Incorrect board (/pol/) of the imageboard forum 4chan, posted over a period of almost 3.5…
"And We Will Fight For Our Race!" A Measurement Study of Genetic Testing Conversations on Reddit and 4chan
Alexandros Mittos, Savvas Zannettou, Jeremy Blackburn +1
Progress in genomics has enabled the emergence of a booming market for "direct-to-consumer" genetic testing. Nowadays, companies like 23andMe and AncestryDNA provide affordable hea…
A Quantitative Approach to Understanding Online Antisemitism
Savvas Zannettou, Joel Finkelstein, Barry Bradlyn +1
A new wave of growing antisemitism, driven by fringe Web communities, is an increasingly worrying presence in the socio-political realm. The ubiquitous and global nature of the Web…
"You Know What to Do": Proactive Detection of YouTube Videos Targeted by Coordinated Hate Attacks
Enrico Mariconti, Guillermo Suarez-Tangil, Jeremy Blackburn +5
Video sharing platforms like YouTube are increasingly targeted by aggression and hate attacks. Prior work has shown how these attacks often take place as a result of "raids," i.e.,…
Understanding Web Archiving Services and Their (Mis)Use on Social Media
Savvas Zannettou, Jeremy Blackburn, Emiliano De Cristofaro +2
Web archiving services play an increasingly important role in today's information ecosystem, by ensuring the continuing availability of information, or by deliberately caching cont…