Title: Exposing Twitter Users to Contrarian News,
Abstract: Polarized topics often spark discussion and debate on social media. Recent
studies have shown that polarized debates have a specific clustered structure
in the endorsement net- work, which indicates that users direct their
endorsements mostly to ideas they already agree with. Understanding these
polarized discussions and exposing social media users to content that broadens
their views is of paramount importance.
The contribution of this demonstration is two-fold. (i) A tool to visualize
retweet networks about controversial issues on Twitter. By using our
visualization, users can understand how polarized discussions are shaped on
Twitter, and explore the positions of the various actors. (ii) A solution to
reduce polarization of such discussions. We do so by exposing users to
information which presents a contrarian point of view. Users can visually
inspect our recommendations and understand why and how these would play out in
terms of the retweet network.
Our demo (this https URL homepage)
provides one of the first steps in developing automated tools that help users
explore, and possibly escape, their echo chambers. The ideas in the demo can
also help content providers design tools to broaden their reach to people with
different political and ideological backgrounds.