Empowering social media users to assess content helps fight misinformation
An experimental platform that puts moderation in the hands of its users shows that people do evaluate posts effectively and share their assessments with others.
Frequent encounters build familiarity
PhD student Paige Bollen finds urban street networks that encourage encounters among strangers link to lower ethnic tensions and anti-immigrant hostility.
Systems scientists find clues to why false news snowballs on social media
A new model shows that the more polarized and hyperconnected a social network is, the more likely misinformation will spread.
Lincoln Laboratory convenes top network scientists for Graph Exploitation Symposium
Researchers share progress applying network science to disinformation tracing, Covid-19 modeling, and machine learning.
Turning technology against human traffickers
Lincoln Laboratory connects counter–human trafficking community in pursuit of technology to help investigate cases.
When more Covid-19 data doesn’t equal more understanding
Social media users share charts and graphs — often with the same underlying data — to advocate opposing approaches to the pandemic.
3 Questions: Devavrat Shah on curbing online misinformation
Expert in social data processing proposes adjusting newsfeed algorithms to better mimic real-life interactions.
How shared partisanship leads to social media connections
Twitter experiment shows clear self-selection into social media “echo chambers” due to political preferences.
Inequality across networks
Eaman Jahani examines how resources are distributed across networks as a social and engineering systems PhD student at the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society.
The promise of using WhatsApp for low-tech distance learning
Teaching community organizers via WhatsApp yields encouraging results in South Africa, according to MIT Governance Lab research.
“If we cannot go out, we can always go in”
Venerable Miao Guang urges mindfulness in a time of pandemic during a virtual meeting hosted by MIT Global Languages.
Examining the social impact of Covid-19
Survey from the Saxe Lab aims to measure the toll of social isolation during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a time of physical distancing, connecting socially across generations is more important than ever
MIT’s AgeLab offers ways to maintain conversations between younger and older adults.
Artificial intelligence shines light on the dark web
New tools can find patterns in vast online data to track and identify users on illicit forums.
3 Questions: Sasha Costanza-Chock on new “#MoreThanCode” report
Study of 188 practitioners distills key recommendations about using technology to advance social justice and the public interest.