Imagine social media as a giant digital town square where people often end up in echo chambers, only talking to those who agree with them. This work looks under the hood to see exactly why this happens and how it breaks trust in official institutions. It's like creating a map of how digital conversations turn into real-world divisions.
Social media platforms are currently causing fragmentation, exclusion, and a loss of trust in traditional institutions. Businesses and governments struggle to navigate this polarized environment without alienating users.
A conceptual model of social affordances and a data-set of Twitter users from 9 European states to measure polarization and trust.
If you are a platform developer dealing with toxic user environments — this project developed tools that improve the capacity of social media to contribute to a healthy public arena. This helps in reducing fragmentation and exclusion of users.
If you are a strategy firm dealing with unpredictable public sentiment — this project developed a data-set of Twitter users from 9 European states. This allows for better understanding of the interaction between polarization and trust.
If you are a moderation service dealing with the erosion of debate norms — this project developed a way to measure causal mechanisms of digital citizenship. This enables the creation of tools that support reliable information and freedom of expression.
Based on available project data, no pricing or cost structures are mentioned as the project is funded by the EU.
The project has already created data-sets covering 9 European states, suggesting the methodology can be scaled across different national markets.
Based on available project data, specific licensing terms are not provided; however, it is a HORIZON-RIA project which typically follows EU open-access guidelines.
The project specifically used Twitter data for its attitudinal embedding, indicating integration capabilities with major social platform data streams.
The project period is from 2023-03-01 to 2026-02-28, with final results expected by February 2026.
The consortium is heavily academic, consisting of 10 partners across 7 countries, with 8 universities and 2 research organizations. There are 0 industry partners and 0 SMEs, indicating that the current output is primarily scientific and requires a commercial partner to translate the findings into market-ready products.
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