Welcome! Glad you found us!

This blog is written by the TRAILS research team at Wellesley. Its main purpose is to demonstrate the use of the TRAILS system that is tracking the ways that tweets propagate.

Why did we built TRAILS? Glad you asked!

Social media have become part of modern news reporting, whether it is being used by journalists to spread information and find sources, or as a medium by citizen reporters. The quest for prominence and recognition on websites like Twitter can sometimes eclipse accuracy and lead to the spread of false information. As a way to study and react to this trend, we introduce TRAILS, an interactive, web-based tool that allows users to investigate the origin and propagation characteristics of a rumor and its denial, if any, on Twitter.

The TRAILS system is composed of a collection of data analysis and visualization tools and provide answers to several questions related to propagation of a rumor on Twitter, including:

• Originator: Who posted the information first?
• Burst: When and how did the story break?
• Timeline: Is the story still spreading at the time of the inquiry?
• Propagators: Who has been retweeting and spreading the story, given the retweets often indicate agreement?
• Negation: Were there any related denying stories competing for attention?
• Main actors: Who were the main actors in the propagation, according to the Twitter audience?

While we envision that TRAILS would be valuable as a tool for individual use, in the initial stages we see it as a tool for amateur and professional journalists investigating recent and breaking stories.

Next, please take a look at individual rumors we have analyzed. We aim to use these initial stories to help people understand how TRAILS work.

Are you ready to explore Trails yourself?  

If you have any questions regarding the TRAILS project, please contact pmetaxas@wellesley.edu.