A few years ago, one of our MSc students at the Oxford Internet Institute and I analysed some log data (aka big data) that Khan Academy had kindly shared with us. We wanted to see how course-takers interact with videos and quizzes. The analyses were fruitful and the results were interesting (for example, there areContinue reading “User engagement with Micro-lessons on Khan Academy”
Category Archives: Paper
Network Science and Party Politics
This is going to be a short post! Using network science, Carla Intal, my former MSc student and current co-author, and I showed (and quantified) the extent of Brexit-driven party distortion in the UK parliament and even predicted the individual MPs’ votes with staggering accuracy. Network science works! Carla has already won the Oxford InternetContinue reading “Network Science and Party Politics”
How sex work has been affected by the pandemic
In the months before the pandemic, I was involved in an extensive piece of research into the sex work industry in the UK. Focusing on the main online market for sex work in the UK, AdultWork, we analysed the profiles of more than 11,500 sex workers to understand the industry and how it operates online.Continue reading “How sex work has been affected by the pandemic”
In Social Media content moderation, the focus should be on user’s long term behaviour; not on a single post
Earlier this month our paper titled “Islamophobes are not all the same! A study of far right actors on Twitter” was published in the Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism. This is one of those papers that has the whole story in its title! So there is very little that I can add, butContinue reading “In Social Media content moderation, the focus should be on user’s long term behaviour; not on a single post”
Your attendance to a concert affects the music your friends listen to
In a recent work, we studied music listenership patterns of 1.3 million online users to measure the direct and indirect effects of live concerts on song plays. We observe social contagion for only a certain type of musician and discuss how it can affect the music market. The Internet has fundamentally reshaped music and otherContinue reading “Your attendance to a concert affects the music your friends listen to”
Fluid sexism; it is rarely an isolated experience
Earlier this year, we finally published the results of our project on Everyday Sexism. We used computational text mining techniques to analyse the content of some 80 thousands stories of everyday instances of sexism posted on the Everyday Sexism website. Our results suggests that sexism is fluid; it’s not limited to a certain space, class,Continue reading “Fluid sexism; it is rarely an isolated experience”
The structure of world-stock-market network resembles geographical ties
In a recent paper, we studied 40 stock markets from top GDP countries to analyse the correlations and connections between them. As expected, we did observe strong correlations between ups and downs of these markets at the global level. However, when using Random Matrix Theory we detected the sub-communities of this global network, we realisedContinue reading “The structure of world-stock-market network resembles geographical ties”
Corruption is in the fabric of societies
Many think that corruption is a result of wealth or the lack of it. Some assume that tighter regulations might stop corruption. Hence, socio-economic metrics have been used to explain the level of corruption in different places with different regulatory regimes. In our recent work, we show that corruption is in the fabric of theContinue reading “Corruption is in the fabric of societies”
Online movements spread explosively rather than diffusively
I’m very happy that a favourite!! paper of mine is finally published in EPJ Data Science. The paper that is titled “Rapid rise and decay in petition signing” tries to analyse and model the dynamics of popularity of online petitions. Traditionally, collective action is known to follow a chain-reaction type of dynamics with a criticalContinue reading “Online movements spread explosively rather than diffusively”
Collective Memory in the Digital Age
We finished our project on Collective Memory in the Digital Age: Understanding “Forgetting” on the Internet last summer, but our last paper just came out on Science Advances last week. The paper, titled “The memory remains: Understanding collective memory in the digital age” presents the results of our study on collective memory patterns based on Wikipedia viewership data of articlesContinue reading “Collective Memory in the Digital Age”
The interplay between extremism and communication in a collaborative project
Collaboration is among the most fundamental social behaviours. The Internet and particularly the Web have been originally developed to foster large scale collaboration among scientists and technicians. The more recent emergence of Web 2.0 and ubiquity of user-generated content on social web, has provided us with even more potentials and capacities for large scale collaborativeContinue reading “The interplay between extremism and communication in a collaborative project”
Using Twitter data to study politics? Fine, but be careful!
The role of social media in shaping the new politics is undeniable. Therefore the volume of research on this topic, relying on the data that are produced by the same technologies, is ever increasing. And let’s be honest, when we say “social media” data, almost always we mean Twitter data! Twitter is arguably the most studiedContinue reading “Using Twitter data to study politics? Fine, but be careful!”
Even good bots fight and a typology of Internet bots
Our new paper titled “Even good bots fight: The case of Wikipedia” has finally appeared on PLOS One. There are two things that I particularly find worth-highlighting about this work. First, this is the first time that someone looks at an ecosystem of the Internet bots at scale using hard data and tries to come upContinue reading “Even good bots fight and a typology of Internet bots”
New Paper: Personal Clashes and Status in Wikipedia Edit Wars
Originally posted on HUMANE blog by Milena Tsvetkova. Our study on disagreement in Wikipedia was just published in Scientific Reports (impact factor 5.2). In this study, we find that disagreement and conflict in Wikipedia follow specific patterns. We use complex network methods to identify three kinds of typical negative interactions: an editor confronts another editorContinue reading “New Paper: Personal Clashes and Status in Wikipedia Edit Wars”
Biases in Online Attention; Whose life matters more
This has become a common knowledge that certain lives matter more, when it comes to media coverage and public attention to natural or manmade disasters. Among many papers and articles that report on such biases, my favourite is this one by William C. Adams, titled “Whose Lives Count?”, and dated back to 1986. In this paper, it’sContinue reading “Biases in Online Attention; Whose life matters more”
Understanding voters’ information seeking behaviour
Jonathan and I recently published a paper titled “Wikipedia traffic data and electoral prediction: towards theoretically informed models“ in EPJ Data Science. In this article we examine the possibility of predicting election results by analysing Wikipedia traffic going to different articles related to the parties involved in the election. Unlike similar work in which socially generatedContinue reading “Understanding voters’ information seeking behaviour”
P-values: misunderstood and misused
Since I launched this blog, I always wanted to write something about the dangers of big data! Things that can go wrong easily when you study a large scale transactional data. Obviously, I haven’t done this! But recently we (Bertie, my PhD Student and I) just finished a paper titled: P-values: misunderstood and misused. Of courseContinue reading “P-values: misunderstood and misused”
Wikipedia; modern platform, ancient debates on Land and Gods
What are the most controversial topics in Wikipedia? What articles have been subject to edit wars more than others? We now have a tool to explore what topics are most controversial in different languages and different parts of the world. Wikipedia is great! There is no doubt about it. You may argue that it’s notContinue reading “Wikipedia; modern platform, ancient debates on Land and Gods”
What can Wikipedia tell us about the Cannes Festival just before the closing
Among all the interesting events taking place today, one is the Closing Ceremony of 2013 Cannes Film Festival. If you already have seen our recent paper on Early Prediction of Movie Box Office Success based on Wikipedia Activity Big Data, you already know that I’m a big fan of movies. In that paper we investigated theContinue reading “What can Wikipedia tell us about the Cannes Festival just before the closing”
Taha Yasseri 