Reading the riots on Twitter: methodological innovation for the analysis of big data

Procter, Robert; Vis, Farida; Voß, Alexander

doi:10.1080/13645579.2013.774172

Cited by 199 publications

(198 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Despite increasing interest in rumours in social media [23,26,39,28,31,40], there has been very little work in automatic rumour detection [36]. Much of what work that has been done on rumour detection [24,10,11] has been limited to finding rumours known a priori.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploiting Context for Rumour Detection in Social Media

Zubiaga

Liakata

Procter

2017

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

Self Cite

206

116

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Abstract. Tools that are able to detect unverified information posted on social media during a news event can help to avoid the spread of rumours that turn out to be false. In this paper we compare a novel approach using Conditional Random Fields that learns from the sequential dynamics of social media posts with the current state-of-the-art rumour detection system, as well as other baselines. In contrast to existing work, our classifier does not need to observe tweets querying the stance of a post to deem it a rumour but, instead, exploits context learned during the event. Our classifier has improved precision and recall over the state-of-the-art classifier that relies on querying tweets, as well as outperforming our best baseline. Moreover, the results provide evidence for the generalisability of our classifier.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploiting Context for Rumour Detection in Social Media

Zubiaga

Liakata

Procter

2017

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

Self Cite

206

116

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“…There has already been some evidence to suggest that Twitter can contribute to peacebuilding, most notably through the crowdsourcing of crisis information and the correction of rumors and disinformation (Procter, et al, 2013). Hashtags and news streams mobilize 'affective publics', those users who are "connected or disconnected through expressions of sentiment" [5].…”

Section: New Media and Intergroup Contact Within Divided Societiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tweeting for peace? Twitter and the Ardoyne parade dispute in Belfast, July 2014

Reilly

2016

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This paper explores how social media can facilitate peace building by focusing on how citizens used Twitter during a contentious march in the Ardoyne district of North Belfast in July 2014. Fears of a repeat of sectarian clashes seen a year earlier were not realized, and the study was designed to empirically investigate whether critics and supporters of the Orange Order used the microblogging site to help reduce the sectarian tensions that surrounded the contentious parade. In particular, it focused on how users responded to rumors and disinformation spread on the microblogging site, which had the potential to incite violence in the contested interface area. The nature of the debate amongst those 'tweeters' who commented on the contentious Ardoyne parade was also investigated, with a focus on how they framed the attitudes and behavior of the 'other' community during these events. Results indicate that the majority of tweeters praised both sides for keeping the parade and related protests peaceful. However, Twitter did not appear to be a shared space capable of fostering crosscommunity consensus on how to resolve the parade dispute. The study suggests that Twitter's most significant contribution to peace building in Northern Ireland might lie in its empowerment of citizens to correct rumors and disinformation, which have the potential to exacerbate sectarian tensions and generate intercommunal violence. Contents

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“…For example, ÔReading the RiotsÕ, an innovative study conducted by the Guardian newspaper in collaboration with several UK universities, used visualization tools to provide the names of those Twitter users who had been responsible for spreading rumours and misinformation during the riots in London, Birmingham, and Manchester in August 2011 (Procter, Vis, & Voss, 2013). An emerging critique of the methods used in this project has suggested that the ÔopennessÕ of this data set may in fact have caused reputational harm to these users, from whom consent had not been obtained by the research team (Krotoski, 2012).…”

Section: Word Visualizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethical dilemmas in researching sensitive issues online: lessons from the study of British disability dissent networks

Trevisan

Reilly

2014

Information, Communication & Society

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This is a preprint of an article whose final and definitive form will be published in Information, Communication & Society.This paper presents an unconventional approach to the resolution of the key ethical dilemmas raised by the study of politically charged personal content posted on social media. In particular, this study suggests that Internet research ethics should remain informed by the disciplinary perspectives of those who study online communities. Hence, Internet scholars must build on established ethical practices from their respective disciplines in such a way as to address these Ôhuman-centredÕ ethical issues. A Ômedium-cloakedÕ strategy towards data anonymization was adopted for this study of the comments posted on the Facebook pages of UK disability rights groups. Key themes were typically conveyed without the disclosure of personally identifiable information and direct quotes were only used if they could not be located using a search engine. The rationale for such an approach is elucidated in order to identify the limitations in the ways in which such ethical issues are dealt with in existing guidelines in this area. The paper suggests that the automatic categorization of disabled people and others experiencing disadvantage as Ôvulnerable groupsÕ in many of these protocols might further disempower these stakeholders through the omission of their personal stories from relevant scholarship. A more nuanced approach towards the protection of user privacy is advocated; one that allows for the use of direct quotes when it is unlikely to prove harmful to the user but also sets out to provide the maximum level of anonymity possible for those who divulge sensitive information in these semi-public spaces.

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Reading the riots on Twitter: methodological innovation for the analysis of big data

Cited by 199 publications

References 6 publications

Exploiting Context for Rumour Detection in Social Media

Exploiting Context for Rumour Detection in Social Media

Tweeting for peace? Twitter and the Ardoyne parade dispute in Belfast, July 2014

Ethical dilemmas in researching sensitive issues online: lessons from the study of British disability dissent networks

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