Browsing by Author "Schiebel, Tobias"

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    Influence of claims and their truthfulness on engagement in social media
    (2022) Schiebel, Tobias
    Motivation. Information can spread rapidly via social media, the spread of false information represents a serious threat to modern liberal democratic society. Therefore, it is crucial to research the way it is propagated. We propose the first approach to do so, covering an unresolved research area. Research Question. Do social media posts containing false claims receive more user engagement than posts with true claims? Method. We analyse a potential correlation between the veracity and the engagement of social media posts. Therefore, we identify claims with a binary claim classifier and estimate their truthfulness based on their similarity to known-veracity-claims. Result. We report no clear correlation between the veracity and the received engagement of posts for all analysed classification models and metrics to measure engagement. Conclusion. We are unable to demonstrate an impact of the veracity of claims in posts on the received engagements with our means. We conclude the necessity of further investigation into this research area.