Small
Conspiracy theories and real-world harms
We will collect and analyze data from online social networks and then develop and visualize empirical models. The spread of conspiracy theories in online social networks has become a scourge with real-world implications, including targeted hate attacks, political turbulence, the burning of 5G towers, and obstacles to healthcare measures in the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior work has focused on retrospectively characterizing conspiracy theories and hate speech on social media, along with the effects of demographic and network characteristics. Research questions: (1) Can we identify the distinguishing features of conspiracy theory narratives in social networks?; (2) Can we automatically detect emerging narratives that possess such distinguishing features?; (3) Can we visualize the evolution of conspiracy theory narratives over time?
Team Members
