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Welcome to our news page, where we share the latest updates, events, and insights. Stay informed with everything happening in our simulation!
Newsletter #4: 2026 Conference Season is Up and Running
Dear WHAT-IF members and network, Spring is in full swing and so is the WHAT-IF team! This newsletter brings you first insights on misinformation detection and interventions, plus an overview of conference presentations in the coming months. New WHAT-IF studies presented at the Political Science Association Conference in Oxford In March, the WHAT-IF researchers Georgia Dagher and Sílvia Majó-Vázquez presented two working papers at the PSA26 Annual Conference celebrated in Oxford. The studies were part of a conference panel focused on mapping misinformation across countries and included other presentations looking at the same phenomena in Russia, Mexico the US and…
Keep readingNewsletter #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),…
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