About - joaopn.github.io
I am a PostDoc at the Computational Social Science lab at the Graz University of Technology and the Complexity Science Hub Vienna . Drawing from my experience in nonlinear dynamical systems, my current research activity centres around emergent phenomena in complex social systems. I employ methods from machine learning, data science and natural language processing to understand a diverse range of topics in the field of Computational Social Science. My current research interests include the spread of misinfor
The rapid spread of misinformation is rapidly becoming a threat to the cohesion of society. While it is still a matter of debate if social media platforms inherently favour the spread of misinformation, the possibilities of rapid online dissemination of information at least exacerbates the problem. A range of interventions to lower a person's tendencie to believe and/or spread misinformation have been shown to work in the laboratory setting. Nevertheless, the big challenge is to scale these interventions up
In this project, we collaborate with behavioral psychologists around Stephan Lewandowsky and Sander van der Linden . These behavioural psychologists developed videos in which strategies that are commonly used to help spread misinformation, such as extreme emotionalisation of content, are pointed out to the viewer. We deliver these videos as intervention to social media users and measure the effect of the intervention on a range of behavioural parameters, such as sharing behaviour and emotionalisation of lan
About - joaopn.github.io