BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//IORA - Institute of Operations Research and Analytics - ECPv6.15.11//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://iora.nus.edu.sg
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for IORA - Institute of Operations Research and Analytics
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Asia/Singapore
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0800
TZOFFSETTO:+0800
TZNAME:+08
DTSTART:20230101T000000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Asia/Singapore:20240531T100000
DTEND;TZID=Asia/Singapore:20240531T113000
DTSTAMP:20260419T201038
CREATED:20240517T034742Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240517T034742Z
UID:22703-1717149600-1717155000@iora.nus.edu.sg
SUMMARY:DAO-IORA Seminar Series - Tauhid Zaman
DESCRIPTION:  \n\n\n\nName of Speaker\nTauhid Zaman\n\n\nSchedule\n31 May 2024\, 10am – 11.30am\n\n\nVenue \nBIZ1- 0307\n\n\nLink to Register\nhttps://nus-sg.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMlduChqDoiGNbvqS_7q_XH-E66BMzMMYIl\n\n\nTitle\nSocial Media Suspensions and Shadow Banning: Political Bias or Genuine Disinformation Control?\n\n\nAbstract\nSocial media platforms like Twitter and TikTok wield significant influence over the visibility and reach of content\, raising critical questions: Are certain voices marginalized based on political leanings\, or are platform interventions primarily aimed at mitigating the spread of disinformation? Recent discussions highlight allegations of political bias in account suspensions and “shadow banning\,” a subtle mechanism where certain content is less visible to users\, often without their knowledge. \nDrawing from a field study on Twitter\, we investigate these claims. Our findings suggest that while some account suspensions may appear biased\, there is equally strong evidence indicating that these actions are strategic efforts to combat the spread of disinformation. \nWe then delve into the issue of shadow banning\, demonstrating how this mechanism can be used to shape opinions into arbitrary distributions by solving a linear program. Through simulations on real social network topologies\, we show that if shadow banning were driven by partisanship\, its implementation could be so subtle that overt political biases remain undetected. This underscores the imperative for rigorous transparency and oversight in the actions of social media platforms. \nThis talk is based on the following papers: \n\n Analysis: Trade-offs between reducing misinformation and politically-balanced enforcement on social media: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/ay9q5\n Shaping Opinions in Social Networks with Shadow Banning: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0299977\n\n\n\n\nAbout the Speaker\nTauhid is an Associate Professor of Operations Management at the Yale School of Management. He received his BS\, MEng\, and PhD degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT.  His research focuses on information operations problems in the context of social media.  Some of the topics he has studied include combating online extremists\, identifying bots\, and designing influence campaigns.  His broader interests cover data driven approaches to investing in startup companies\, algorithmic sports betting\, and biometric data.  His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal\, Wired\, Mashable\, the LA Times\, Bloomberg\, and Time Magazine. \nWebsite: https://www.zlisto.com/\n\n\n\n 
URL:https://iora.nus.edu.sg/events/dao-iora-seminar-series-tauhid-zaman/
CATEGORIES:IORA Seminar Series
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR