Open AccessCOORNET: AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO SURFACE PROBLEMATIC CONTENT, MALICIOUS ACTORS, AND COORDINATED NETWORKS
Author(s) -
Fabio Giglietto,
Nicola Righetti,
Luca Rossi,
Giada Marino
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
selected papers of internet research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2162-3317
DOI - 10.5210/spir.v2021i0.12170
Subject(s) - disinformation , context (archaeology) , field (mathematics) , content (measure theory) , computer science , information sharing , internet privacy , phenomenon , content analysis , computer security , data science , political science , world wide web , sociology , social media , epistemology , history , social science , mathematics , mathematical analysis , philosophy , archaeology , pure mathematics
As much as the field of mis/disinformation studies flourished duringthe last few years, the efforts to measure its prevalence and effects are often hindered orsignificantly limited by the fuzziness of the phenomenon under study. Differently fromapproaches based on sole content or actors detection, the authors implement an integratedapproach to understand the interplay between manipulative actors, deceptive behavior, andharmful content. To do so, the authors present a study on patterns of coordinated activityon Facebook (named “Coordinated Link Sharing Behavior”) during the first and second waves ofthe COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. Coordinated Link Sharing Behavior” (CLSB) refers to thecoordinated shares of the same news article in a very short timeframe by networks of pages,groups, and verified public profiles. CLSB is a strategy used to boost the reach of contentby gaming algorithms that govern the distribution of posts. Additionally, this coordinatedactivity has been proven to be consistently associated with the spread of problematicinformation before the 2018 and 2019 Italian elections. In this paper, the authors devotespecific attention to discuss the methodology and tool employed in the context of existingliterature on mis/disinformation as well as to present the results of the casestudy.