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News on Consequences of Exposure
In the spring, as the virus swept across the world and billions of people were compelled to stay at home, the popularity of one social media app rose more sharply than any other. By late March, usage of WhatsApp around the world had grown by 40%. In Spain, where the lockdown was particularly strict, it […]
By William DaviesIn the introduction, we noted converging trends of political and religious extremism and associated violence, and the increasing role of the internet and World Wide Web in ordering both individual lives and societies. While this convergence has found its most dramatic expression in the study of militant Islamism online, we also noted a need to […]
A significant proportion of the academic literature on extremism online has sought to address its use as a tool for radicalisation and mobilisation by extreme Islamic groups. In so doing, the research neglects the significant, long-established—and growing—threat posed by extremist Christian groups, some of whom are amongst the most well-established—and sophisticated—users of digital technologies as […]
Research on extremism and the Internet has primarily been concerned with violent Islamic groups and their networks and to a lesser extent far right groups. Such a focus has meant that the study of violent animal rights extremism and the Internet has largely been neglected despite the Internet providing animal rights extremists with a medium […]
Are they blinded by their political passions? Or are they just intellectually lazy?
In this research, we hypothesize that some social users are more gullible to fake news than others, and accordingly investigate on the susceptibility of users to fake news–i.e., how to identify susceptible users, what are their characteristics, and if one can build a prediction model.Building on the crowdsourced annotations of 5 types of susceptible users […]
Individuals in diaspora tend to engage and interact with the people of their origin. Afghans in the 1980s and 90s, still one of the largest diaspora communities, used traditional channels such as Radio and Television to communicate with their loved ones inside Afghanistan. The Internet facilitated changing their mode of communication to near real-time updates. […]
The rapid rise of social media over the past two decades has brought with it a surge in misinformation. Online debates on topics such as vaccinations, presidential elections (pdf) and the coronavirus pandemic are often as vociferous as they are laced with misleading information. Perhaps more than any other topic, climate change has been subject […]
By Kathie Treen, Dr Hywel Williams, & Dr Saffron O’NeillAs anti-racism protests continue to sweep the United States, disinformation experts warn the Black Lives Matter movement is threatened by domestic disinformation, created and spread by far-right and white supremacists conspiracy groups. Last week, U.S. representatives Val Demings and Raja Krishnamoorthi pressed federal intelligence authorities to determine if foreign adversaries are exploiting American social movements, including Black […]
By Isobel Cockerell and Rachel Sherman When Elena Iliadis searched for “Black Lives Matter” on GoFundMe, the popular online fundraising platform, she didn’t do much research on the first verified foundation that popped up. Inspired to help the cause, the 19-year-old Georgetown University sophomore and her a capella group, the Phantoms, raised nearly $1,100 for what they thought was the global […]
By Ryan Mac and Brianna Sacks“While disinformation is not new to politics, today’s technologies enable political actors to manipulate the information ecosystem at scale and with great speed. Through massive networks of fake accounts, junk news sites, and the strategic use of conspiracy theories, half-truths, and falsehoods, authoritarian regimes and others are suffocating and dividing the public square. In the […]