English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Ten years ago, DARPA launched the 'Network Challenge', more commonly known asthe 'DARPA Red Balloon Challenge'. Ten red weather balloons were fixed atunknown locations in the US. An open challenge was launched to locate all ten,the first to do so would be declared the winner receiving a cash prize. A teamfrom MIT Media Lab was able to locate them all within 9 hours using socialmedia and a novel reward scheme that rewarded viral recruitment. Thisachievement was rightly seen as proof of the remarkable ability of socialmedia, then relatively nascent, to solve real world problems such aslarge-scale spatial search. Upon reflection, however, the challenge was alsoremarkable as it succeeded despite many efforts to provide false information onthe location of the balloons. At the time the false reports were filtered basedon manual inspection of visual proof and comparing the IP addresses of thosereporting with the purported coordinates of the balloons. In the ten yearssince, misinformation on social media has grown in prevalence andsophistication to be one of the defining social issues of our time. Seendifferently we can cast the misinformation observed in the Red BalloonChallenge, and unexpected adverse effects in other social mobilisationchallenges subsequently, not as bugs but as essential features. We furtherinvestigate the role of the increasing levels of political polarisation inmodulating social mobilisation. We confirm that polarisation not only impedesthe overall success of mobilisation, but also leads to a low reachability tooppositely polarised states, significantly hampering recruitment. We find thatdiversifying geographic pathways of social influence are key to circumventbarriers of political mobilisation and can boost the success of new openchallenges.

Impossible by Conventional Means: Ten Years on from the DARPA Red Balloon Challenge