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Newsletter #3: From Real-World Interventions to Virtual Agents
Dear WHAT-IF members and network, As the WHAT-IF project moves forward, this newsletter highlights two updates in our collective endeavour to tackle online misinformation, incivility and platform governance. Both efforts underscore the value of interdisciplinary collaboration and partnerships—whether between computer scientists and social scientists in Vienna, or between academics and practitioners in Spain. Read more: Preliminary results of WP3 study show that misinformation inoculation works, yet boosting quality news does not Work Package 3 (WP3) has already obtained substantial results from its first study. The study is led by Andreu Casas at Royal Holloway London, with the participation of Sílvia…
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Between Christmas Markets and Large Language Models: The WHAT-IF Vienna Workshop
In the midst of all the Christmas markets in Vienna, 16 researchers from 8 institutions came together to discuss AI-powered simulations of online behaviour to shape platform governance. Implementing Large Language Models (LLM) into agent-based models, the WHAT-IF team is tackling fundamental questions about digital platforms: how to reduce hostility and harmful content in online spaces. What sounds very technical, requires an interdisciplinary collaboration spanning computer science, physics, political and communication science, as well as policy research. The two-day workshop brought together the WP4 modeling and simulation team of David Garcia (University of Konstanz) and Annie Waldherr (University of Vienna),…
Keep readingNewsletter #2: New partnerships & first conference presentations
Dear WHAT-IF members and interested colleagues, We’re six months into the project and our team members have made significant progress across their respective work packages. Over the summer, WHAT-IF researchers have been developing their data collection methods, forming new partnerships, and presenting conceptual work at academic conferences, sharing early insights with the broader academic community: New strategic partnership with real-world practitioners to advance misinformation research In a recent blog post, we describe our partnership with Spanish media literacy and fact-checking organizations Learn to Check! and maldita.es. As part of the data collection in Spain, Learn to Check! is developing visual graphics,…
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