2,015 research outputs found
Cross-language Wikipedia Editing of Okinawa, Japan
This article analyzes users who edit Wikipedia articles about Okinawa, Japan,
in English and Japanese. It finds these users are among the most active and
dedicated users in their primary languages, where they make many large,
high-quality edits. However, when these users edit in their non-primary
languages, they tend to make edits of a different type that are overall smaller
in size and more often restricted to the narrow set of articles that exist in
both languages. Design changes to motivate wider contributions from users in
their non-primary languages and to encourage multilingual users to transfer
more information across language divides are presented.Comment: In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems, CHI 2015. AC
Multilinguals and Wikipedia Editing
This article analyzes one month of edits to Wikipedia in order to examine the
role of users editing multiple language editions (referred to as multilingual
users). Such multilingual users may serve an important function in diffusing
information across different language editions of the encyclopedia, and prior
work has suggested this could reduce the level of self-focus bias in each
edition. This study finds multilingual users are much more active than their
single-edition (monolingual) counterparts. They are found in all language
editions, but smaller-sized editions with fewer users have a higher percentage
of multilingual users than larger-sized editions. About a quarter of
multilingual users always edit the same articles in multiple languages, while
just over 40% of multilingual users edit different articles in different
languages. When non-English users do edit a second language edition, that
edition is most frequently English. Nonetheless, several regional and
linguistic cross-editing patterns are also present
Bots increase exposure to negative and inflammatory content in online social systems
Societies are complex systems which tend to polarize into sub-groups of
individuals with dramatically opposite perspectives. This phenomenon is
reflected -- and often amplified -- in online social networks where, however,
humans are no more the only players, and co-exist alongside with social bots,
i.e., software-controlled accounts. Analyzing large-scale social data collected
during the Catalan referendum for independence on October 1, 2017, consisting
of nearly 4 millions Twitter posts generated by almost 1 million users, we
identify the two polarized groups of Independentists and Constitutionalists and
quantify the structural and emotional roles played by social bots. We show that
bots act from peripheral areas of the social system to target influential
humans of both groups, bombarding Independentists with violent contents,
increasing their exposure to negative and inflammatory narratives and
exacerbating social conflict online. Our findings stress the importance of
developing countermeasures to unmask these forms of automated social
manipulation.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure
European Language Ecology and Bilingualism with English on Twitter
The present paper deals with Flemish adolescents' informal computer-mediated communication (CMC) in a large corpus (2.9 million tokens) of chat conversations. We analyze deviations from written standard Dutch and possible correlations with the teenagers' gender, age and educational track. The concept of non-standardness is operationalized by means of a wide range of features that serve different purposes, related to the chatspeak maxims of orality, brevity and expressiveness. It will be demonstrated how the different social variables impact on non-standard writing, and, more importantly, how they interact with each other. While the findings for age and education correspond to our expectations (more non-standard markers are used by younger adolescents and students in practice-oriented educational tracks), the results for gender (no significant difference between girls and boys) do not: they call for a more fine-grained analysis of non-standard writing, in which features relating to different chat principles are examined separately
Introduction: Global Coordinates of Internet Histories
This chapter introduces the particular angle and contribution of the Routledge Companion to Global Internet Histories – the imperative to grasp the global character of Internet histories. The Routledge Companion to Global Internet Histories brings together research on local and international internet histories that have evolved in different regions, language cultures and social contexts across the globe. While the internet is now in its fifth decade, the understanding and formulation of its histories outside of an Anglophone framework is very much in its infancy. The emphasis of this volume is on understanding and formulating internet histories outside of the Anglophone case studies and theoretical paradigms that have so far dominated academic scholarship on internet history. Interdisciplinary in scope, the collection offers a variety of historical lenses on the development of the internet: as a new communications technology seen in the context of older technologies; as a new form of sociality read alongside previous technologically mediated means of relating; and as a new media ‘vehicle’ for the communication of content.Australian Research Counci
Lost in Translation -- Multilingual Misinformation and its Evolution
Misinformation and disinformation are growing threats in the digital age,
spreading rapidly across languages and borders. This paper investigates the
prevalence and dynamics of multilingual misinformation through an analysis of
over 250,000 unique fact-checks spanning 95 languages. First, we find that
while the majority of misinformation claims are only fact-checked once, 11.7%,
corresponding to more than 21,000 claims, are checked multiple times. Using
fact-checks as a proxy for the spread of misinformation, we find 33% of
repeated claims cross linguistic boundaries, suggesting that some
misinformation permeates language barriers. However, spreading patterns exhibit
strong homophily, with misinformation more likely to spread within the same
language. To study the evolution of claims over time and mutations across
languages, we represent fact-checks with multilingual sentence embeddings and
cluster semantically similar claims. We analyze the connected components and
shortest paths connecting different versions of a claim finding that claims
gradually drift over time and undergo greater alteration when traversing
languages. Overall, this novel investigation of multilingual misinformation
provides key insights. It quantifies redundant fact-checking efforts,
establishes that some claims diffuse across languages, measures linguistic
homophily, and models the temporal and cross-lingual evolution of claims. The
findings advocate for expanded information sharing between fact-checkers
globally while underscoring the importance of localized verification
Social media mining under the COVID-19 context: Progress, challenges, and opportunities
Social media platforms allow users worldwide to create and share information, forging vast sensing networks that
allow information on certain topics to be collected, stored, mined, and analyzed in a rapid manner. During the
COVID-19 pandemic, extensive social media mining efforts have been undertaken to tackle COVID-19 challenges
from various perspectives. This review summarizes the progress of social media data mining studies in the
COVID-19 contexts and categorizes them into six major domains, including early warning and detection, human
mobility monitoring, communication and information conveying, public attitudes and emotions, infodemic and
misinformation, and hatred and violence. We further document essential features of publicly available COVID-19
related social media data archives that will benefit research communities in conducting replicable and repro�ducible studies. In addition, we discuss seven challenges in social media analytics associated with their potential
impacts on derived COVID-19 findings, followed by our visions for the possible paths forward in regard to social
media-based COVID-19 investigations. This review serves as a valuable reference that recaps social media mining
efforts in COVID-19 related studies and provides future directions along which the information harnessed from
social media can be used to address public health emergencies
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