Social determinants of content selection in the age of (mis)information

Despite the enthusiastic rhetoric about the so called \emph{collective intelligence}, conspiracy theories -- e.g. global warming induced by chemtrails or the link between vaccines and autism -- find on the Web a natural medium for their dissemination. Users preferentially consume information according to their system of beliefs and the strife within users of opposite narratives may result in heated debates. In this work we provide a genuine example of information consumption from a sample of 1.2 million of Facebook Italian users. We show by means of a thorough quantitative analysis that information supporting different worldviews -- i.e. scientific and conspiracist news -- are consumed in a comparable way by their respective users. Moreover, we measure the effect of the exposure to 4709 evidently false information (satirical version of conspiracy theses) and to 4502 debunking memes (information aiming at contrasting unsubstantiated rumors) of the most polarized users of conspiracy claims. We find that either contrasting or teasing consumers of conspiracy narratives increases their probability to interact again with unsubstantiated rumors.Comment: misinformation, collective narratives, crowd dynamics, information spreadin

The Machinery of Democracy: Voting Systems and Ballot Miscounts in Illinois

The outcome of the 2000 presidential election focused unprecedented national attention on apparent inequities in the election process. Before the controversies surrounding that election, few citizens had been aware that a substantial portion of votes for major offices were regularly not counted because either citizens marked ballots incorrectly or voting equipment recorded them incorrectly. After the election, evidence also emerged that some jurisdictions had miscount rates that were dramatically higher than others. What caused the wide variation in miscount rates? Was it racism, as some have suggested? Was it the machinery itself? Or, was it something else? Authors Paul Quirk, James Kuklinski and Philip Habel come to some surprising conclusions

Voting for the Illinois House: Experience and Lessons from the Illinois Laboratory [Contributors]

No abstract available

Voting for the Illinois House: Experience and Lessons from the Illinois Laboratory [Contributors]

No abstract available

Social Informatics - 6th International Conference, SocInfo 2014, Proceedings

Despite the enthusiastic rhetoric about the so called collective intelligence, conspiracy theories e.g. global warming induced by chemtrails or the link between vaccines and autism find on the Web a natural medium for their dissemination. Users preferentially consume information according to their system of beliefs and the strife within users of opposite worldviews (e.g., scientific and conspiracist) may result in heated debates. In this work we provide a genuine example of information consumption on a set of 1.2 million of Facebook Italian users. We show by means of a thorough quantitative analysis that information supporting different worldviews i.e. scientific and conspiracist news are consumed in a comparable way. Moreover, we measure the effect of 4709 evidently false information (satirical version of conspiracist stories) and 4502 debunking memes (information aiming at contrasting unsubstantiated rumors) on polarized users of conspiracy claims