News

Algorithm can create a bridge between Clinton and Trump supporters

Twitter case study aims to minimize the controversies.
Endorsement network of US Elections: each dot indicates a Twitter user and a line between two dots indicates that one user retweeted the other. The two sides, red - republicans and blue - democrats do not endorse each other, while endorsing their own sides heavily. Picture: Kiran Garimella / Aalto University.

A growing number of people have expressed their concern about high levels of polarization in the society. For instance, the World Economic Forum’s report on global risks lists the increasing societal polarization as a threat – and others have suggested that social media might be contributing to this phenomenon. The article that received the best student-paper award in the Tenth International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining (WSDM 2017) builds algorithmic techniques to mitigate the rising polarization by connecting people with opposing views - and evaluates them on Twitter.

The research models user interactions around a given topic such as US elections or Obamacare on Twitter as an endorsement graph, nodes representing the Twitter users. One commonly observed feature of such graphs is that, for controversial topics, the structure of the graph is strongly biclustered. The research suggests bridges between users of opposing sides, so as to effectively minimize the polarization. Bridges can be used to provide users with recommendations about who to retweet.

“We are the first to propose a thoroughly algorithmic solution, which can be applied on a large-scale and is language- and domain-independent. The main algorithm is based on the finding that for a special type of network simulating a polarized network, the best bridges we can add to the network are between the nodes with the highest degrees on either side”, explains professor Aristides Gionis from Aalto University Department of Computer Science.

Possible bridges in the case of US elections

Since the study deals with retweet networks, high-degree users usually are the ones who are well known and have many followers. In the case of US elections, the two sides would be the democrats and republicans and the highest degree users would be Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on either side, respectively. It is not practical to recommend that Clinton would follow Trump, so even though in theory these are the best edges, they might not materialize in the real world.

“When applied on Twitter discussions around the US election results, the algorithm suggests that creating a bridge between @hillaryclinton and @breitbartnews would reduce polarization the most. However, taking into account how likely such a bridge is to materialize, the algorithm suggests that other bridges between less prominent Twitter accounts, for instance liberal journalist @mtracey and conservative activist @rightwingangel show better potential”, describes researcher Kiran Garimella.

The research approach of Kiran Garimella, Gianmarco De Francisci Morales, Aristides Gionis and Michael Mathioudakis performs better than existing ones, in terms of bringing the two sides closer. Though earlier studies have tried to address the problem of how to recommend content to an ideologically opposite side, researchers of Aalto University, Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT and Qatar Computing Research Institute intend to move from who to what to recommend in their future studies.

More information:

Kiran Garimella
Researcher
Aalto University
[email protected]
Tel. +358 50 430 4933

Aristides Gionis
Professor
Aalto University
[email protected]
Tel. +358 50 430 1651

Article: Reducing Controversy by Connecting Opposing Views

  • Published:
  • Updated:

Read more news

Six soil samples with germinating seeds showing various stages of sprouting in different soil types.
Cooperation, Research & Art, Studies Published:

New life for construction waste wood

In Finland, almost all waste wood from construction ends up being burned, even though it could play a major role in the development of ecological growing media. New research shows that steam-treated waste wood can replace peat as a growing medium and offers promising results in plant germination and root growth.
A group photo of pre-incubator teams on Marsio Stage at the Aalto Creative Demo Day event.
Campus, Cooperation, Research & Art Published:

Aalto Creative Demo Day: Inspiring Pitches and the Future of Creative Industry Incubation

Pre-incubator participants from Aalto Digital Creatives pitched their startup ideas on Marsio Stage. Aalto Digital Creatives will continue as the Aalto Creatives program in 2025.
Illustration of van Der Waals materials in moiré
Research & Art Published:

Twisted multiferroics discovery makes new kinds of topological spintronic devices possible

Research into moiré patterns in two-dimensional van der Waals materials provides a new way to engineer quantum matter that may lead to more energy-efficient memory storage and improved quantum technologies
The picture shows the School of Business main building on Ekonominaukio 1, Espoo, Finland.
Research & Art Published:

School of Business researchers have had the opportunity to share their expertise in top-tier media outlets

Over the autumn of 2024, the School of Business featured in several publications reaching over 14.2 million potential readers