WIRED: Weekly Informal REsearch Discussions Spring 2018
Wednesday, April 18th
KMC 8-170
Lunch will be available at 12:15 pm. The seminar begins at 12:30 pm.
"Patterns of social interaction in online public discussions: A hypergraph representation"
Sean Taylor
Abstract: Online public conversations, which feature open participation and interactions between strangers, are increasing in their frequency and societal importance. Digital platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit face challenges in improving these conversations, from designing user interfaces to stimulating participation and moderating or prioritizing content. Perhaps the most important challenge is deciding which kinds of conversations are most valuable to people and how the value generated can be practically measured at large scale and across a variety of use-cases.
In this talk I present a range of approaches to measuring and characterizing online public conversations. In the course of product research at Facebook, we have applied machine learning, human annotation, surveys, network analysis, and ethnographic research in order to gain a deeper understanding of the space of public conversations and to try to pin down how and when they create value for the participants. I discuss how ongoing advancements in measurement technology have helped us improve Facebook products, and what we have learned about human behavior in the process of studying these social systems.
Bio: Sean J. Taylor is a computational social scientist on Facebook’s Data Science team. Prior to Facebook, he earned his PhD in Information Systems from NYU’s Stern School of Business. He specializes in using machine learning methods and randomized experiments for measurement, prediction, and policy decisions. Sean’s research ranges from studying online social influence, viral marketing, and social networks to measuring how sports fans behave and the impact of data science on decision making in organizations. He is also an avid engineer who enjoys putting academic research into practice by building tools and services.