Ricerc@Sapienza

Social media radically changed the way we access information and form our opinions. Users online tend to acquire information adhering to their beliefs and ignore dissenting information ([1, 2]). Such a process, combined with the unprecedented amount of information we can access online, fostered the emergence of groups of like-minded peers framing and reinforcing a shared narrative (i.e., echo chambers). The exceptional and unprecedented global effects generated by the COVID-19 epidemic have shown how social media can be an effective tool for influencing population behavior, helping governments in epidemic management. The COVID-19 pandemic elicited the limits of the definition of "Fake News" in capturing the overall complexity of the new information landscape. Indeed, the World Health Organization coined the term infodemics to define the "overabundance of information - some accurate and some not - that occurs during an epidemic." The typical approaches for countering misinformation include, among the others, improving detection algorithms, introducing legal deterrents, developing a more educated online citizenship. However, misinformation campaigns are still considered effective and still difficult to prevent.

The Prebunking project aims to tackle this important challenge, studying the state of the art of the so-called Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviors (CIBs), evaluating their characteristics, and proposing possible countermeasures to limit their impact. In particular, leveraging the experience of the proponents about the topic, we will:
- search for effective modeling of CIB attack strategies that aim at promoting ("making viral") selected contents, subverting social media platforms feed algorithms;
- propose possible countermeasures to reduce the effects of CIB attacks, and thus limiting the effectiveness of misinformation campaigns;
- develop specific approaches and more generalized strategies to limit as soon as possible the effects of misinformation spreading.