Manipulation and abuse on social media
Emilio Ferrara

TL;DR
This paper reviews the increasing use of social media for communication, highlighting the risks of manipulation, misinformation, and abuse, and discusses recent advances and future challenges in making social media safer and more reliable.
Contribution
It provides a comprehensive overview of recent research on social media abuse, manipulation, and safety challenges, and discusses future directions for addressing these issues.
Findings
Social media is exploited for misinformation and manipulation.
Platforms lack effective content verification systems.
Social media abuse impacts mental health and societal stability.
Abstract
The computer science research community has became increasingly interested in the study of social media due to their pervasiveness in the everyday life of millions of individuals. Methodological questions and technical challenges abound as more and more data from social platforms become available for analysis. This data deluge not only yields the unprecedented opportunity to unravel questions about online individuals' behavior at scale, but also allows to explore the potential perils that the massive adoption of social media brings to our society. These communication channels provide plenty of incentives (both economical and social) and opportunities for abuse. As social media activity became increasingly intertwined with the events in the offline world, individuals and organizations have found ways to exploit these platforms to spread misinformation, to attack and smear others, or to…
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Taxonomy
TopicsMisinformation and Its Impacts · Spam and Phishing Detection · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence
