@article{DariusUrquhart, author = {Darius, Philipp and Urquhart, Michael}, title = {Disinformed social movements: A large-scale mapping of conspiracy narratives as online harms during the COVID-19 pandemic}, series = {Online Social Networks and Media}, volume = {26}, journal = {Online Social Networks and Media}, doi = {10.1016/j.osnem.2021.100174}, abstract = {The COVID-19 pandemic caused high uncertainty regarding appropriate treatments and public policy reactions. This uncertainty provided a perfect breeding ground for spreading conspiratorial anti-science narratives based on disinformation. Disinformation on public health may alter the population's hesitance to vaccinations, counted among the ten most severe threats to global public health by the United Nations. We understand conspiracy narratives as a combination of disinformation, misinformation, and rumour that are especially effective in drawing people to believe in post-factual claims and form disinformed social movements. Conspiracy narratives provide a pseudo-epistemic background for disinformed social movements that allow for self-identification and cognitive certainty in a rapidly changing information environment. This study monitors two established conspiracy narratives and their communities on Twitter, the anti-vaccination and anti-5G communities, before and during the first UK lockdown. The study finds that, despite content moderation efforts by Twitter, conspiracy groups were able to proliferate their networks and influence broader public discourses on Twitter, such as \#Lockdown in the United Kingdom.}, language = {en} } @incollection{DariusStephany, author = {Darius, Philipp and Stephany, Fabian}, title = {How the Far-Right Polarises Twitter: 'Hashjacking' as a Disinformation Strategy in Times of COVID-19}, series = {Complex Networks \& Their Applications X. COMPLEX NETWORKS 2021. Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol 1016}, booktitle = {Complex Networks \& Their Applications X. COMPLEX NETWORKS 2021. Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol 1016}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Cham}, isbn = {978-3-030-93413-2}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-93413-2_9}, publisher = {Hertie School}, pages = {100 -- 111}, abstract = {Twitter influences political debates. Phenomena like fake news and hate speech show that political discourses on social platforms can become strongly polarised by algorithmic enforcement of selective perception. Some political actors actively employ strategies to facilitate polarisation on Twitter, as past contributions show, via strategies of 'hashjacking'(The use of someone else's hashtag in order to promote one's own social media agenda.). For the example of COVID-19 related hashtags and their retweet networks, we examine the case of partisan accounts of the German far-right party Alternative f{\"u}r Deutschland (AfD) and their potential use of 'hashjacking' in May 2020. Our findings indicate that polarisation of political party hashtags has not changed significantly in the last two years. We see that right-wing partisans are actively and effectively polarising the discourse by 'hashjacking' COVID-19 related hashtags, like \#CoronaVirusDE or \#FlattenTheCurve. This polarisation strategy is dominated by the activity of a limited set of heavy users. The results underline the necessity to understand the dynamics of discourse polarisation, as an active political communication strategy of the far-right, by only a handful of very active accounts.}, language = {en} } @article{StephanyNeuhaeuserStoehretal., author = {Stephany, Fabian and Neuh{\"a}user, Leonie and Stoehr, Niklas and Darius, Philipp and Teutloff, Ole and Braesemann, Fabian}, title = {The CoRisk-Index: A Data-Mining Approach to Identify Industry-Specific Risk Perceptions Related to Covid-19}, series = {Humanities and Social Sciences Communications}, volume = {9}, journal = {Humanities and Social Sciences Communications}, number = {1}, doi = {10.1057/s41599-022-01039-1}, abstract = {The global spread of Covid-19 has caused major economic disruptions. Governments around the world provide considerable financial support to mitigate the economic downturn. However, effective policy responses require reliable data on the economic consequences of the corona pandemic. We propose the CoRisk-Index: a real-time economic indicator of corporate risk perceptions related to Covid-19. Using data mining, we analyse all reports from US companies filed since January 2020, representing more than a third of the US workforce. We construct two measures—the number of 'corona' words in each report and the average text negativity of the sentences mentioning corona in each industry—that are aggregated in the CoRisk-Index. The index correlates with U.S. unemployment rates across industries and with an established market volatility measure, and it preempts stock market losses of February 2020. Moreover, thanks to topic modelling and natural language processing techniques, the CoRisk data provides highly granular data on different dimensions of the crisis and the concerns of individual industries. The index presented here helps researchers and decision makers to measure risk perceptions of industries with regard to Covid-19, bridging the quantification gap between highly volatile stock market dynamics and long-term macroeconomic figures. For immediate access to the data, we provide all findings and raw data on an interactive online dashboard.}, language = {en} } @unpublished{DariusStephany, author = {Darius, Philipp and Stephany, Fabian}, title = {How the Far-Right Polarises Twitter: 'Highjacking' Hashtags in Times of COVID-19}, doi = {10.31235/osf.io/n6f3r}, abstract = {Twitter influences political debates. Phenomena like fake news and hate speech show that political discourse on micro-blogging can become strongly polarised by algorithmic enforcement of selective perception. Some political actors actively employ strategies to facilitate polarisation on Twitter, as past contributions show, via strategies of 'hashjacking'. For the example of COVID-19 related hashtags and their retweet networks, we examine the case of partisan accounts of the German far-right party Alternative f{\"u}r Deutschland (AfD) and their potential use of 'hashjacking' in May 2020. Our findings indicate that polarisation of political party hashtags has not changed significantly in the last two years. We see that right-wing partisans are actively and effectively polarising the discourse by 'hashjacking' COVID-19 related hashtags, like \#CoronaVirusDE or \#FlattenTheCurve. This polarisation strategy is dominated by the activity of a limited set of heavy users. The results underline the necessity to understand the dynamics of discourse polarisation, as an active political communication strategy of the far-right, by only a handful of very active accounts.}, language = {en} } @techreport{StephanyStoehrDariusetal., type = {Working Paper}, author = {Stephany, Fabian and Stoehr, Niklas and Darius, Philipp and Neuh{\"a}user, Leonie and Teutloff, Ole and Braesemann, Fabian}, title = {The CoRisk-Index: A data-mining approach to identify industry-specific risk assessments related to COVID-19 in real-time}, series = {General Economics (econ.GN)}, journal = {General Economics (econ.GN)}, abstract = {While the coronavirus spreads, governments are attempting to reduce contagion rates at the expense of negative economic effects. Market expectations plummeted, foreshadowing the risk of a global economic crisis and mass unemployment. Governments provide huge financial aid programmes to mitigate the economic shocks. To achieve higher effectiveness with such policy measures, it is key to identify the industries that are most in need of support. In this study, we introduce a data-mining approach to measure industry-specific risks related to COVID-19. We examine company risk reports filed to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This alternative data set can complement more traditional economic indicators in times of the fast-evolving crisis as it allows for a real-time analysis of risk assessments. Preliminary findings suggest that the companies' awareness towards corona-related business risks is ahead of the overall stock market developments. Our approach allows to distinguish the industries by their risk awareness towards COVID-19. Based on natural language processing, we identify corona-related risk topics and their perceived relevance for different industries. The preliminary findings are summarised as an up-to-date online index. The CoRisk-Index tracks the industry-specific risk assessments related to the crisis, as it spreads through the economy. The tracking tool is updated weekly. It could provide relevant empirical data to inform models on the economic effects of the crisis. Such complementary empirical information could ultimately help policymakers to effectively target financial support in order to mitigate the economic shocks of the crisis.}, language = {en} } @incollection{DariusStephany, author = {Darius, Philipp and Stephany, Fabian}, title = {"Hashjacking" the Debate: Polarisation Strategies of Germany's Political Far-Right on Twitter}, series = {Social Informatics. SocInfo 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 11864}, volume = {11846}, booktitle = {Social Informatics. SocInfo 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 11864}, editor = {Weber (et al.), Ingmar}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Cham}, issn = {978-3-030-34971-4}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-34971-4_21}, pages = {298 -- 308}, abstract = {Twitter is a digital forum for political discourse. The emergence of phenomena like fake news and hate speech has shown that political discourse on micro-blogging can become strongly polarised by algorithmic enforcement of selective perception. Recent findings suggest that some political actors might employ strategies to actively facilitate polarisation on Twitter. With a network approach, we examine the case of the German far-right party Alternative f{\"u}r Deutschland (AfD) and their potential use of a "hashjacking" strategy (The use of someone else's hashtag in order to promote one's own social media agenda.). Our findings suggest that right-wing politicians (and their supporters/retweeters) actively and effectively polarise the discourse not just by using their own party hashtags, but also by "hashjacking" the political party hashtags of other established parties. The results underline the necessity to understand the success of right-wing parties, online and in elections, not entirely as a result of external effects (e.g. migration), but as a direct consequence of their digital political communication strategy.}, language = {en} } @article{CowlsDariusSantistevanetal., author = {Cowls, Josh and Darius, Philipp and Santistevan, Dominiquo and Schramm, Moritz}, title = {Constitutional metaphors: Facebook's "supreme court" and the legitimation of platform governance}, series = {New Media and Society}, journal = {New Media and Society}, doi = {10.1177/14614448221085559}, abstract = {Who governs—and who should govern—online communication? Social media companies, international organizations, users, or the state? And by what means? A range of rhetorical devices have been used to simplify the complexities associated with the governance of online platforms. This includes "constitutional metaphors": metaphorical allusions to traditional political concepts such as statehood, democracy, and constitutionalism. Here, we empirically trace the ascent of a powerful constitutional metaphor currently employed in the news media discourse on platform governance: characterizations of Facebook's Oversight Board (OB) as a "supreme court." We investigate the metaphor's descriptive suitability and question its normative and political ramifications. We argue that uncritical characterizations of the OB as Facebook's "supreme court" obscure its true scope and purpose. In addition, we argue that appropriating the socio-cultural symbolism and hence political legitimacy of a supreme court and mapping it onto a different type of actor poses a threat to responsible platform governance.}, language = {en} } @incollection{RoemmeleDarius, author = {R{\"o}mmele, Andrea and Darius, Philipp}, title = {KI und datengesteuerte Kampagnen: Eine Diskussion der Rolle generativer KI im politischen Wahlkampf}, series = {Informationsfl{\"u}sse, Wahlen und Demokratie: Festschrift f{\"u}r R{\"u}diger Schmitt-Beck}, volume = {Studien zur Wahl- und Einstellungsforschung. Band 35}, booktitle = {Informationsfl{\"u}sse, Wahlen und Demokratie: Festschrift f{\"u}r R{\"u}diger Schmitt-Beck}, editor = {Faas, Thorsten and Huber, Sascha and Krewel, Mona and Roßteutscher, Sigrid}, publisher = {Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH \& Co. KG}, address = {Baden-Baden}, isbn = {9783756008001}, doi = {10.5771/9783748915553}, publisher = {Hertie School}, pages = {199 -- 211}, language = {de} } @article{GibsonBonDariusetal., author = {Gibson, Rachel and Bon, Esmeralda and Darius, Philipp and Smyth, Peter}, title = {Are Online Political Influencers Accelerating Democratic Deconsolidation?}, series = {Media and Communication}, volume = {11}, journal = {Media and Communication}, number = {3}, issn = {2183-2439}, doi = {10.17645/mac.v11i3.6813}, abstract = {Social media campaigning is increasingly linked with anti-democratic outcomes, with concerns to date centring on paid adverts, rather than organic content produced by a new set of online political influencers. This study systematically compares voter exposure to these new campaign actors with candidate-sponsored ads, as well as established and alternative news sources during the US 2020 presidential election. Specifically, we examine how far higher exposure to these sources is linked with key trends identified in the democratic deconsolidation thesis. We use data from a national YouGov survey designed to measure digital campaign exposure to test our hypotheses. Findings show that while higher exposure to online political influencers is linked to more extremist opinions, followers are not disengaging from conventional politics. Exposure to paid political ads, however, is confirmed as a potential source of growing distrust in political institutions.}, language = {en} } @techreport{DariusStockmannBrysonetal., type = {Working Paper}, author = {Darius, Philipp and Stockmann, Daniela and Bryson, Joanna and Cingolani, Luciana and Griffin, Rachel and Hammerschmid, Gerhard and Kupi, Maximilian and Mones, Haytham and Munzert, Simon and Riordan, R{\´o}n{\´a}n and Stockreiter, Simona}, title = {Implementing Data Access of the Digital Services Act: Collaboration of European Digital Service Coordinators and Researchers in Building Strong Oversight over Social Media Platforms}, doi = {10.48462/opus4-4947}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-49479}, pages = {11}, abstract = {The EU Digital Service Acts signals a move away from self-regulation towards co-regulation of social media platforms within the European Union. To address online harms and rising platform power the DSA clarifies responsibilities of platforms and outlines a new technology regulatory framework to increase oversight. One key oversight instrument constitutes Article 40 of the DSA, which lays out data access for vetted researchers, who add value to regulators and the broader public as creators of knowledge, educators, advisors, innovators, and watchdogs. Currently, the EU Commission and national governments make important decisions regarding Digital Service Coordinators (DSCs) that play a key role in implementation. Based on expertise on European public administration and political science we lay out key challenges and success factors of DSCs that will play a role in promoting successful cooperation between DSCs and researchers. We provide three recommendations: First, we recommend to strengthen transfer of scientific knowledge into policy-making by processing publicly accessible publications within public administrative bodies. To this end, capacities of DSCs need to be increased. In addition, we also point towards the database of vetted researchers collected by the Board of DSCs as important resource in order to strengthen knowledge transfer. Second, the DSC network requires agile institutions with fast response time in order to enable researchers to play a constructive role in implementation. This also includes institutional procedures between DSCs and the Intermediary Body and Data Protection Agencies. To avoid delay in implementation agile institution-building needs to start now. Finally, institutional safeguards will help to avoid strategic choice of companies of the DSC of establishment. At the same time, the Irish DSC's capacity should be strengthened compared to other national DSCs since most large intermediary services providers have their European headquarters in Ireland.}, language = {en} } @article{Darius, author = {Darius, Philipp}, title = {Who polarizes Twitter? Ideological polarization, partisan groups and strategic networked campaigning on Twitter during the 2017 and 2021 German Federal elections 'Bundestagswahlen'}, series = {Social Network Analysis and Mining}, volume = {12}, journal = {Social Network Analysis and Mining}, doi = {10.1007/s13278-022-00958-w}, abstract = {Political campaign activities are increasingly digital. A crucial part of digital campaigning is communication efforts on social media platforms. As a forum for political discourse and political communication, parties and candidates on Twitter share public messages and aim to attract media attention and persuade voters. Party or prominent candidate hashtags are a central element of the campaign communication strategy since journalists and citizens search for these hashtags to follow the current debate concerning the hashed party or political candidate. Political elites and partisans use social media strategically, e.g., to link their messages to a broader debate, increase the visibility of messages, criticize other parties, or take over their hashtags (hashjacking). This study investigates the cases of the most recent 2017 and 2021 German federal elections called 'Bundestagswahlen'. The investigation (1) identifies communities of partisans in retweet networks in order to analyze the polarization of the most prominent hashtags of parties, 2) assesses the political behavior by partisan groups that amplify messages by political elites in these party networks, and 3) examines the polarization and strategic behavior of the identified partisan groups in the broader election hashtag debates using \#BTW17 and \#BTW21 as the prominent hashtags of the 2017 and 2021 elections. While in 2017, the far-right party 'Alternative f{\"u}r Deutschland' (AfD) and its partisans are in an isolated community, in 2021, they are part of the same community as the official party accounts of established conservative and liberal parties. This broader polarization may indicate changes in the political ideology of these actors. While the overall activity of political elites and partisans increased between 2017 and 2021, AfD politicians and partisans are more likely to use other party hashtags, which resulted in the polarization of the observed parts of the German political twitter sphere. While in 2017, the AfD polarized German Twitter, 2021 shows a broader division along the classical left-right divide.}, language = {en} } @techreport{RoemmeleDarius, type = {Working Paper}, author = {R{\"o}mmele, Andrea and Darius, Philipp}, title = {Politicians don't dance? AI doesn't either!: A discussion of generative AI and political campaigning}, series = {Verfassungsblog}, journal = {Verfassungsblog}, number = {2023/6/30}, doi = {10.17176/20230630-231152-0}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Darius, author = {Darius, Philipp}, title = {Are social media platforms accelerators of democratic fragmentation? An inquiry into the relationship of democratic fragmentation and social media platforms in three political arenas: political campaigns, protest movements and democratic institutions}, doi = {10.48462/opus4-5055}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-50557}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {136}, abstract = {Whilst social media platforms provide global communication environments, these platforms are not primarily designed for political debates. This may have adverse effects on democracy and contribute to democratic fragmentation. This dissertation project investigates the role of social media platforms as potential accelerators of fragmentation in established democracies. The overarching question of this dissertation explores to what extent social media platforms may contribute to fragmentation that may result in the erosion of democracy. This dissertation comprises three articles focusing on three political arenas 1) political campaigns, 2) protest movements, and 3) democratic institutions. The first paper investigates the polarisation of online political behaviour on Twitter in democratic election campaigns. The analysis is based on Twitter data of German political parties and election hashtags during the final week of the 2017 and 2021 German Federal elections. The study's findings suggest that the far-right party AfD seeks to polarise online discourse as a strategy and that far-right online partisans may influence the public reception of politicians and established parties. The second paper examines the formation of protest movements on Twitter during the Covid-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. The study monitors two established conspiracy narratives and their communities on Twitter, the anti-vaccination and anti-5G communities, before and during the first UK lockdown. The study finds that, despite content moderation efforts by Twitter, conspiracy groups were able to proliferate their messages and influence broader public discourses on Twitter, such as \#Lockdown in the United Kingdom. The findings underline social platforms' potential for protest formation that can result in disinformed social movements. The third paper inspects social platform companies' mimicking of democratic institutions like Meta's oversight board for content decisions that may erode existing democratic institutions. The study traces the emergence of the supreme court metaphor for Meta's oversight board and its use in the US News discourse. The findings emphasise how private organisations and the use of constitutional metaphors can erode the legitimacy of supreme courts and other democratic institutions. The dissertation's findings imply that social media platforms, besides their democratically desirable function for democratic participation and deliberative potentials, contribute to democratic fragmentation in the inspected arenas of political campaigns, disinformed protest movements and democratic institutions. Thus, extended research data access is key to better understanding the social implications of social media platforms and finding adequate regulations of recommender systems, content moderation, and advertisement-based business models.}, language = {en} }