scholarly journals LOCO: The 88-million-word language of conspiracy corpus

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Miani ◽  
Thomas Hills ◽  
Adrian Bangerter
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
User Behavior ◽  
Cosine Similarity ◽  
School Shooting ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Political Bias ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
Internet User Behavior ◽  
Structured Meaning

AbstractThe spread of online conspiracy theories represents a serious threat to society. To understand the content of conspiracies, here we present the language of conspiracy (LOCO) corpus. LOCO is an 88-million-token corpus composed of topic-matched conspiracy (N = 23,937) and mainstream (N = 72,806) documents harvested from 150 websites. Mimicking internet user behavior, documents were identified using Google by crossing a set of seed phrases with a set of websites. LOCO is hierarchically structured, meaning that each document is cross-nested within websites (N = 150) and topics (N = 600, on three different resolutions). A rich set of linguistic features (N = 287) and metadata includes upload date, measures of social media engagement, measures of website popularity, size, and traffic, as well as political bias and factual reporting annotations. We explored LOCO’s features from different perspectives showing that documents track important societal events through time (e.g., Princess Diana’s death, Sandy Hook school shooting, coronavirus outbreaks), while patterns of lexical features (e.g., deception, power, dominance) overlap with those extracted from online social media communities dedicated to conspiracy theories. By computing within-subcorpus cosine similarity, we derived a subset of the most representative conspiracy documents (N = 4,227), which, compared to other conspiracy documents, display prototypical and exaggerated conspiratorial language and are more frequently shared on Facebook. We also show that conspiracy website users navigate to websites via more direct means than mainstream users, suggesting confirmation bias. LOCO and related datasets are freely available at https://osf.io/snpcg/.

scholarly journals Distortions of political bias in crowdsourced misinformation flagging

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (167) ◽  
pp. 20200020
Author(s):  
Michele Coscia ◽  
Luca Rossi
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
News Item ◽  
Real World Data ◽  
Media Environment ◽  
Political Bias ◽  
News Sources ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
News Source ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Current Content

Many people view news on social media, yet the production of news items online has come under fire because of the common spreading of misinformation. Social media platforms police their content in various ways. Primarily they rely on crowdsourced ‘flags’: users signal to the platform that a specific news item might be misleading and, if they raise enough of them, the item will be fact-checked. However, real-world data show that the most flagged news sources are also the most popular and—supposedly—reliable ones. In this paper, we show that this phenomenon can be explained by the unreasonable assumptions that current content policing strategies make about how the online social media environment is shaped. The most realistic assumption is that confirmation bias will prevent a user from flagging a news item if they share the same political bias as the news source producing it. We show, via agent-based simulations, that a model reproducing our current understanding of the social media environment will necessarily result in the most neutral and accurate sources receiving most flags.

scholarly journals Identifying Chinese Microblog Users With High Suicide Probability Using Internet-Based Profile and Linguistic Features: Classification Model

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. e17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Guan ◽  
Bibo Hao ◽  
Qijin Cheng ◽  
Paul SF Yip ◽  
Tingshao Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Social Media ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Machine Learning Algorithms ◽  
Classification Models ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
Screening Efficiency ◽  
The Mean

Background Traditional offline assessment of suicide probability is time consuming and difficult in convincing at-risk individuals to participate. Identifying individuals with high suicide probability through online social media has an advantage in its efficiency and potential to reach out to hidden individuals, yet little research has been focused on this specific field. Objective The objective of this study was to apply two classification models, Simple Logistic Regression (SLR) and Random Forest (RF), to examine the feasibility and effectiveness of identifying high suicide possibility microblog users in China through profile and linguistic features extracted from Internet-based data. Methods There were nine hundred and nine Chinese microblog users that completed an Internet survey, and those scoring one SD above the mean of the total Suicide Probability Scale (SPS) score, as well as one SD above the mean in each of the four subscale scores in the participant sample were labeled as high-risk individuals, respectively. Profile and linguistic features were fed into two machine learning algorithms (SLR and RF) to train the model that aims to identify high-risk individuals in general suicide probability and in its four dimensions. Models were trained and then tested by 5-fold cross validation; in which both training set and test set were generated under the stratified random sampling rule from the whole sample. There were three classic performance metrics (Precision, Recall, F1 measure) and a specifically defined metric “Screening Efficiency” that were adopted to evaluate model effectiveness. Results Classification performance was generally matched between SLR and RF. Given the best performance of the classification models, we were able to retrieve over 70% of the labeled high-risk individuals in overall suicide probability as well as in the four dimensions. Screening Efficiency of most models varied from 1/4 to 1/2. Precision of the models was generally below 30%. Conclusions Individuals in China with high suicide probability are recognizable by profile and text-based information from microblogs. Although there is still much space to improve the performance of classification models in the future, this study may shed light on preliminary screening of risky individuals via machine learning algorithms, which can work side-by-side with expert scrutiny to increase efficiency in large-scale-surveillance of suicide probability from online social media.

scholarly journals Online Coping with the First Wave: Covid Humor and Rumor on Dutch Social Media (March – July 2020)

2021 ◽  
Vol 82 ◽  
pp. 135-158
Author(s):  
Theo Meder ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
The Other ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Insight Into

In the course of March 2020, the Netherlands, Flanders, and a large part of Europe were affected by the first wave of the COVID-19 virus. For four months, the population was in lockdown, and many issues had to be handled online. Social media became important to keep in touch with and to air opinions. Two folktale genres, namely the joke and the modern legend, were used to express frustrations, malicious pleasures, fears, and feelings of distrust. During the first wave, Theo Meder and Mathijs Kroon did some intensive collecting of jokes, memes, fake news, and conspiracy theories. It was expected by folktale researchers like Giselinde Kuipers and Theo Meder that, just like in former crises, jokes would contain plenty of morbid disaster humor, but that did not happen. Contemporary legends, on the other hand, were polarizing and toxic, and mistrust was mainly directed against the elite of politicians, scientists, doctors, and journalists. The corona crisis was seen as some kind of hoax in many ways, while most of the “sheeple” refused to wake up. The analysis of folktales during the pandemic provides an insight into the feelings and emotions in society.

scholarly journals Information Technology as a Promotion Agent

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-119
Author(s):  
M F A Sudistira ◽  
◽  
M F Nasruddin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Marketing Strategy ◽  
User Behavior ◽  
Internet User ◽  
Business People ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Internet User Behavior ◽  
Descriptive Method

The purpose of this study is to see how promotions are carried out on social media as a marketing agent at this time. This research used a descriptive method by observing internet user behavior and analyzing the marketing strategy of Instagram as one of the platform social media that effectively as a promotion agent. The results of this paper show that many business people use various social media platforms as a medium to promote the products they offer. It is because, in the current era, social media is a medium that is widely used by large communities in various parts of the world. With various facilities and also minimal costs, making social media widely used by business people with attractive offers and affordable prices.

scholarly journals The Logic of Conspiracy Theories in the Internet Day

2019 ◽  
pp. 11-25
Author(s):  
Olha Wasyuta ◽  
Sergiy Wasyuta
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Internet Usage ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Social Responses ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
Current Events ◽  
Wide Availability ◽  
Common Interests

The paper reviews the logic of conspiracy theories in the age of internet, emphasizing that the spread of internet usage increased the amount and variety of political information, which has created unprecedented opportunities to communicate with supporters about current events. The wide availability of content provided by users on online social media makes it easier to connect people around common interests, beliefs and narratives. However, the internet also allows you to quickly spread anecdotal rumors and conspiracy theories, which often cause fast, large, but often naive social responses. It is the internet that allows conspiracy theories to travel farther and faster than before. Belief in conspiracy theories reduces trust in traditional media and government institutions, even if they are not associated with conspiracy theories. Keywords: conspiracy theories, internet, social media, traditional media.

Impact of Online Social Media on Consumer Decision Making: A Study in Dehradun

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. 379-381
Author(s):  
Dr. Aruna Kumar Mishra ◽  
◽  
Narendra Kumar Narendra Kumar ◽  
Abhishek Sharma
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Consumer Decision Making ◽  
Consumer Decision ◽  
Online Social Media

DERADICALISATION IDEAS IN SOCIAL MEDIA THROUGH THE RELIGIOUS-MULTICULTURAL THERAPY APPROACH TO THE DA'WAH CULTURE

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
Anwar Hafidzi
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Real World ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Research Tool ◽  
Therapy Approach ◽  
The Real ◽  
Multicultural Therapy ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
Library Research

This research begins with an understanding of the endemic radicalism of society, not only of the real world, but also of various online social media. This study showed that the avoidance of online radicalism can be stopped as soon as possible by accusing those influenced by the radical radicality of a secular religious approach. The methods used must be assisted in order to achieve balanced understanding (wasathiyah) under the different environmental conditions of the culture through recognizing the meaning of religion. The research tool used is primarily library work and the journal writings by Abu Rokhmad, a terrorist and radicalise specialist. The results of this study are that an approach that supports inclusive ism will avoid the awareness of radicalization through a heart-to-heart approach. This study also shows that radical actors will never cease to argue dramatically until they are able to grasp different views from Islamic law, culture, and families.Keywords: radicalism, deradicalization, multiculturalism, culture, religion, moderate.Penelitian ini berawal dari paham radikalisme yang telah mewabah di masyarakat, bukan hanya di dunia nyata, bahkan sudah menyusup di berbagai media sosial online. Penelitian ini menemukan bahwa cara menangkal radikalisme online dapat dilakukan pencegahan sedini mungkin melalui pendekatan konseling religius multikultural terhadap mereka yang terkena paham radikal radikal. Diantara teknik yang digunakan adalah melalui pemahaman tentang konsep agama juga perlu digalakkan agar memunculkan pemahaman yang moderat (wasathiyah) diberbagai keadaan lingkungan masyarakat. Metode yang digunakan untuk penelitian ini adalah library research dengan sumber utama adalah karya dan jurnal karya Abu Rokhmad seorang pakar dalam masalah terorisme dan radikalisme. Temuan penelitian ini adalah paham radikalisasi itu dapat dihentikan dengan pendekatan hati ke hati dengan mengedepankan budaya yang multikultural. Kajian ini juga membuktikan bahwa pelaku paham radikal tidak akan pernah berhenti memberikan argumen radikal kecuali mampu memahami perbedaan pendapat yang bersumber dari syariat Islam, lingkungan sosial, dan keluarga.Kata kunci: radikalisme, deradikalisasi, multikultural, budaya, agama, moderat.

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