We developed an educational activity for our Introduction to Media Arts and Sciences course “Computing for the Socio-Techno Web”, for students to think critically about the truthfulness of news propagated in social media. This activity utilizes TwitterTrails, a visual tool to analyze Twitter claims, events, and memes. This tool provides views such as a propagation graph of a story’s bursting activity, and co-ReTweeted network. Using a response and reflection form, students are guided through these different facets of a story.

We hope that other educators will further improve and use this activity with their own students.

Learning Goals

We defined the following learning goals for our in-class activity. In particular, we expect that following participation in the activity, students will be able to:

1.  Understand the concepts of rumor spreading, including the extent and mechanisms in which stories propagate over social media.
2.  Read and interpret visualizations that:
   Describe propagation of information over time
3.  Conduct an evidence-based inquiry into the reliability of online information, employing a set of questions to examine who is spreading a story, and when and how was the story propagated
4.  Identify indicators and characteristics that impact reliability including polarization, echo chamber, timing, and Twitters bots.

Activity materials

• We presented the students with an 11-minute short demo on how to use TwitterTrails and we recorded the presentation in a video posted on YouTube.
• Groups of 3-4 students selected randomly two of 12 stories and completed the Activity form.
• Each student at the end completed a Reflection form on their experience investigating the stories.

Feel free to contact us, we would love to hear from you if you want to use our activity materials!

Various rumors have been spreading on social media–even Twitter, which usually moderates false claims–following the Paris attacks on November 13th, 2015.  We recently reported on Trump’s misattributed tweet earlier, and now we highlight another claim that is spreading in this emotionally charged environment: that 10,000 Syrian refugees (that’s apparently them in the image below, notably all young men) have recently arrived in New Orleans.

10,000 Syrian refugees have not arrived in New Orleans.  The image, according to snopes, was taken in Hungary in September 2015.  This claim, fueled by the emotional climate on social media due to the Paris attacks, a combination of anger, fear and increasing xenophobia, vastly inflated the reality of only two Syrian refugee families arriving in New Orleans. (Yet, the arrival has caused backlash from Louisiana republicans, including presidential candidate Bobby Jindal, adding to the momentum of false claims).  

Like the Trump tweet claim, this story has moderate spread for a false claim (as observed by TwitterTrails), and also very low skepticism.  Very little fact checking has affected the emotional spread of this claim.

If you are familiar with the Twittertrails.com system you can explore the story on TwitterTrails, or keep reading to see how strong emotions manifest in the spreading of rumors on Twitter.
http://twittertrails.wellesley.edu/~trails/stories/investigate.php?id=647751846

Continue reading Strong emotions on Twitter let the false claim that 10,000 refugees arrived in New Orleans spread unchecked →

The tweet on the right caught my attention this morning.  It contains a screenshot of Gérard Araud, French ambassador to the US replying to a tweet written by Donald Trump.  Trump calls the “tragedy in Paris” “interesting” given that France has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world and Araud calls Trump “repugnant” and lacking “human decency”.

My immediate reaction was skepticism: even Trump, now running for president, wouldn’t write such an insensitive tweet following November 13th’s tragic attacks.  So, after getting over the shock value of what I read, I went into fact checking mode.  It didn’t take very much research to poke holes in this claim.  The screenshot posted in the tweet shows the tweet by Trump was sent on January 7th; obviously not after the attacks.  I also checked Donald Trump’s twitter account, and quickly observed that the tweet was not in his timeline, and he had in fact tweeted prayers for Paris.  

However, the tweet by Trump is real and a quick google search found it (at the time of writing this, it has not been deleted):
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/552955167533174785

Rather than being about the attacks on November 13th, the tweet was written in response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks, which happened January 7th, 2015.  (The tweet by Araud seems to be legitimate and has been mentioned by various sources, but has been deleted)

So how did so many people miss this fact?  

Continue reading Did Donald Trump write an insensitive tweet about the Nov 13th attacks in Paris? →

On September 29th, 2015, Planned Parenthood organized a #PinkOut hashtag, to give Twitter users a forum in which to show support for the group.  However, data collected with the #PinkOut hashtag shows one of the most polarized co-retweeted networks we have collected on TwitterTrails, far more polarized than even US electoral debates!

Attempting to undermine #PinkOut, some Twitter users opposed to Planned Parenthood suggested their own hashtag: #BlackOut. On the 28th, @PolitiBunny tweeted: “Stand w/the babies on Sept 29, make your avi black & white, #BLACKout ur banner photo to protest @PPFA’s #PinkOut. We need you! #Life #ccot”

Thus, a Twitter “war” of attention was waged; or rather, another “battle” in a long standing social media feud.   This blog post explores the polarization in the network, and the two opposing hashtags.

Continue reading #Pinkout vs. #Blackout →

Deez Nuts was trending on Twitter on August 19th after poll showed him with 9% support against frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.  If you think this is hard to believe, you’re not alone:
  

So is it true?

Continue reading Is 2016 going to be a race between Hillary, Trump and… Deez Nuts? →