Controversy in Web Data Todays schedule 09:00 - 09:10 Coffee & - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Aug 08, 2023 194 likes •393 views

Controversy in Web Data Todays schedule 09:00 - 09:10 Coffee & Introduction & Chair by Lora Aroyo, Web & Media group, VU Computer Science 09:10 - 09:20: Understanding Controversy Using Collective Intelligence - Benjamin Timmermans,

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Controversy in Web Data

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Today’s schedule

09:00 - 09:10 Coffee & Introduction & Chair by Lora Aroyo, Web & Media group, VU Computer Science 09:10 - 09:20: Understanding Controversy Using Collective Intelligence - Benjamin Timmermans, VU Computer Science 09:20 - 09:30: Detecting Controversies in Online News Media - Kaspar Beelen, UvA Faculty of Humanities 09:30 - 09:45: Crowdynews deploying ControCurator - Gerben van Eerten, CrowdyNews 09:45 - 10:00: Identifying High-quality Opinions on the Web - Davide Ceolin, VU Computer Science 10:00 - 10:15: Political Filter Bubbles - Damian Trilling, UvA Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences 10:15 - 10:30: Making & Breaking Filter Bubbles - Daan Odijk, Blendle 10:30 - 10:45: Skewing the data - Andy Tanenbaum 10:45 - 11:00: Q&A + Coffee

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What is Controversy?

Controversy

noun | con·tro·ver·sy | \ˈkän-trə-ˌvər-sē

An argument that involves many people who strongly disagree about something Merriam-Webster Prolonged public disagreement or heated discussion Oxford English Dictionary When people often disagree and debate with opposing viewpoints Mejova, Y., Zhang, A. X., Diakopoulos, N., & Castillo, C. (2014).

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Why this is relevant

Unbiased source for journalists, government
Preventing filter bubbles
Identify fake news
Fact checking explorations
Understand how issues develop

SLIDE 5

Vaccination

Pro

Vaccines save lives
Ingredients are safe
Eradicated smallpox and polio
Vaccines prevent medical cost

Against

Vaccines have side effects
Ingredients are harmful
Freedom of choice
It is unnatural

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Climate Change

Pro

Humans are responsible
Greenhouse effect
CO2 rising rate unnatural
No change in Sun heat

Against

Humans are not responsible
Natural fluctuation
Not link with CO2 rise
Caused by Sun activity

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What are the challenges

How to explain controversy scores
How to compare different controversial documents
How to present, visualize & interact with controversy
How to understand the utility of knowing something is controversial
How to combine methods & sources
How to identify the influence & relation to quality, varsity, sentiment

SLIDE 11

ControCurator

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ControCurator.org

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Goal of ControCurator

Enable the discovery and understanding

f controversial issues and events by bringing together

humans & machine in active learning workflows

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The Five Aspects of Controversy

Actors → many participating actors Polarity → clustered opposing viewpoints Openness → plays out in an open public space Time-Persistence → persists over longer stretches of time Emotion → triggers emotional responses

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Dataset

Issues: 12k Guardian articles
Discussions: 700k related comments

Trump seeking quickest way to quit Paris climate agreement, says report

Donald Trump is looking at quick ways of withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement in defiance

f widening international backing for the plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions, Reuters has

reported. Since the US president-elect was chosen, governments ranging from China to small island states have reaffirmed support for the 2015 Paris agreement at 200-nation climate talks running until 18 November in Marrakesh, Morocco.

The Guardian - November 13th 2016

Comments

“Forget WW3, dumping the Paris agreement will be the equivalent of declaring war on humanity.” “If true then @realDonaldTrump is an idiot because #climatechange is for real and we need #renewableenergy over #fossilfuels” “It will be a countdown to see whether Trump destroys humanity via climate change or thermonuclear war.” “I always suspected Donald Trump would end humanity if he became president, I never thought he would find a way to do it quite so quickly” “Absolutely horrifying. Have your day defying the "elites", people, but nobody can deny reality."

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Crowdsourcing Task

Input Data: 5k Guardian articles + 5 representative comments per article
Targets the five controversy aspects
6 annotators per article
$ 0.01 reward

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Results

30k annotations, 518 annotators
Emotion and polarity are strongest indicators of controversy
Significant positive effect (adjusted R2 of 59%)

○ Emotion: 10% ○ Polarity: 5% ○ Other: < 2%

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ControCurator Barometer

controcurator.org/browse

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Summary

Identifying controversy is difficult because multiple aspects affect it
It is not feasible for a single annotator to fully review a discussion
All aspects were found to contribute to controversy

ControCurator.org