Blog

In the groundbreaking new PBS series “NetWorld,” Niall Ferguson visits network theorists, social scientists and data analysts (including at OSoMe) to explore the intersection of social media, technology and the spread of cultural movements. Reviewing classic experiments and cutting-edge research,...

Work by the Observatory on Social Media is having real-world impact. For example, our tools have been used to uncover the roots of political misinformation in investigative pieces on the White Helmets and the pizzagate conspiracy. Hoaxy and Botometer have been leveraged in studies of m...

Indiana University will establish a $6 million research center to study the role of media and technology in society. With leadership by CNetS faculty, the Observatory on Social Media will investigate how information and misinformation spread online. It will also provide students, journalists and c...

Our analysis of information shared on Twitter during the 2016 U.S. presidential election has found that social bots played a disproportionate role in spreading misinformation online. The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, analyzed 14 million messages and 400,000 articles sha...

Filippo Menczer appeared on a panel of experts to discuss the emergence and dissemination of misinformation, and how it threatens society at the annual meeting of American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., Feb. 15. Menczer was a part of a three-person panel and pre...

Onur Varol, a postdoctoral research associate at Northeastern University who earned his Ph.D. in Informatics from IU and was a member of OSoMe, has been honored with the University Distinguished Ph.D. Dissertation Award for 2018, which is the highest honor for research Indiana University bestows on...

The spread of fake news is no game, but to recent OSoMe graduate Mihai Avram, a game just might be the solution. As a graduate student in CNetS, Avram developed a mobile app called Fakey to help combat the spread of fake news on social media. It is available to download for both Android and i...

Researchers at CNetS, IUNI, and the Indiana University Observatory on Social Media have launched upgrades to two tools playing a major role in countering the spread of misinformation online: Hoaxy and Botometer. A third tool Fakey — an educational game designed to make people smarter news c...

The indictment of 13 Russians in the operation of a "troll farm" that spread false information related to the 2016 U.S. presidential election has renewed the spotlight on the power of "fake news" to influence public opinion. Filippo Menczer joined prominent legal scholars, social scientists and res...

While social media have brought about a more egalitarian model of information access, the lack of oversight from expert journalists makes the users of these platforms vulnerable to the intentional or unintentional spread of misinformation. We observe hoaxes, rumors, fake reports, and conspiracy th...