Jeremy Blackburn

Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, Binghamton University

Was the Internet a Mistake? A Data-driven Outlook for Online Jerks

November 17, 2022 - 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM Eastern Time

Location:

E100 Innovation Hall and online

Virtual Location:

Zoom

Talk Abstract:

Over the past couple of decades, the growth and ubiquity of the Internet, and social media in particular, has drastically changed the world. While things like the rapid spread of knowledge and instant communication have certainly had a positive impact, the Internet has also enabled the spread of disinformation and coordination of both online attacks and physical violence. In this talk, I present a data-driven understanding of the darker side of the Web.

Among other things, I will show how we can measure the evolution and splintering of extremist groups over time and how conspiracy theories form and are disseminated online. I will also cover how extremist language changes and novel socio-technical attacks rapidly manifest in response to real world events. Finally, I will discuss the nuanced relationship that science itself has with online jerks.

Speaker Bio:

Jeremy Blackburn is an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Computer Science at Binghamton University. Jeremy is broadly interested in data science, with a focus on large-scale measurements and modeling. His largest line of work is in understanding jerks on the Internet. His award winning research into understanding toxic behavior, hate speech, and fringe and extremist Web communities has been covered in the press by the likes of The Washington Post, the New York Times, and Infowars, among others.

Jeremy has an Erdos-Bacon number of O(7), has been quoted by Zizek, and has had at least one League of Legends account permabanned.