Social Media

Hate speech and misinformation on social media can have a devastating impact, particularly on marginalized communities. But what if we used artificial intelligence to combat such harmful content?

That’s the goal of a team of ��Ƶ researchers who were awarded a Catalyst Grant by the Data Sciences Institute (DSI) to develop an AI system to address the marginalization of communities in data-centric systems – including social media platforms such as Twitter.

The team consists of three faculty members. Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed is an assistant professor in the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and a fellow of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society. Shohini Bhattasali is an assistant professor in the department of language studies at U of T Scarborough. Shion Guha is an assistant professor cross-appointed between the department of computer science and the Faculty of Information, the director of the Human-Centered Data Science Lab and a faculty affiliate of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society.

Their goal is to make content moderation more inclusive by involving the communities affected by harmful or hateful content on social media. The project is a collaboration with two Canadian non-profit organizations: the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice (CCNC-SJ) and the Islam Unravelled Anti-Racism Initiative.

Historically marginalized groups are most affected by content moderation failings as they have lower representation among human moderators and their data is less available for algorithms, Ahmed explains.

(L-R) Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, Shohini Bhattasali and Shion Guha (supplied photos)

“While most social media platforms have taken measures to moderate and identify harmful content and limit its spread, human moderators and AI algorithms often fail to identify it correctly and take proper actions," he says.

The team plans to design and evaluate the proposed system to address potential Islamophobic and Sinophobic posts on Twitter. The AI system aims to democratize content moderation by including diverse voices in two primary ways: first, by allowing users to contest a decision, the moderation process becomes more transparent and trustworthy for users who are victims of online harms. Second, by taking user input and retraining machine learning (ML) models, the system ensures that users’ contesting positions reflect on the prescreening ML system.

“Annotating data becomes challenging when the annotators are divided in their opinions. Resolving this issue democratically requires involving different communities, which is currently not common in data science practices," Ahmed notes.

"This project addresses the issue by designing, developing and evaluating a pluralistic framework of justification and contestation in data science while working with two historically marginalized communities in Toronto.”

The AI system will integrate the knowledge and experiences of community members into the process of reducing hateful content directed toward their communities. The team is using a participatory data-curation methodology that helps them learn about the characterization of different kinds of harmful content affecting a community and includes members of the corresponding community in the data-labelling process to ensure data quality.

“We are grateful to DSI for their generous support for this project. The DSI community has also helped us connect with people conducting similar research and learn from them," Ahmed says, adding that his team's research is expected to have far-reaching impacts beyond the two communities it is currently focused on.

From CBC to TikTok, U of T alumnus Gave Lindo has followed his passion for storytelling

geoff.vendeville — Mon, 25 Jul 2022 16:47:25 +0000

From CBC to TikTok, U of T alumnus Gave Lindo has followed his passion for storytelling

geoff.vendeville Mon, 07/25/2022 - 12:47

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Gave Lindo, who has three degrees from U of T, pursued a career in the media industry, first at CBC and now at TikTok Canada (photo courtesy of Gave Lindo)

Peter Boisseau

Topic

Our Community

Alumni

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Law

New College

Social Media

With three degrees from the ��Ƶ – a B.A., M.B.A. and law degree – Gave Lindo had no shortage of career options. Ultimately, his love of storytelling steered him toward working in media.

He led digital content offerings as an executive director at CBC, including CBC.ca and CBC Kids, while also launching the public broadcaster’s streaming service, CBC Gem. Now, he leads content programming at TikTok Canada.

“I started as a litigator, but it was clear to me there were a lot of different ways to impact society,” says Lindo, who earned a bachelor of arts with honours and a specialist in political science from the Faculty of Arts & Science as a member of New College, as well as a master’s in business administration from the Rotman School of Management and a law degree from U of T.

“You can do that through the legal system or building enterprises, but contributing to the social conversation going on in the world through the media is where my passion for storytelling really came from,” Lindo says.

“Stories can help people feel reflected, especially if they come from different cultural backgrounds, socioeconomic perspectives, sexual orientations or genders,” he says.

“That is an incredibly powerful tool, and the ability to influence that – in the broadcasting capacity – was really meaningful to me.”

At TikTok, Lindo is helping grow a social media platform that has even greater reach, with an estimated one billion users worldwide sharing short-form videos through the app although it was only launched a few years ago.

“At CBC, I was trying to create opportunities for new voices and creators to pitch and tell their stories. But that's a fairly small group of people, relatively speaking,” he says.

“The difference is, with TikTok, companies can be creating content right next to a stay-at-home parent. We’re enabling people, regardless of their professional backgrounds, to come to the table, create content and entertain people.”

While especially popular with a younger demographic, TikTok started to attract an older generation of users in greater numbers during the pandemic, Lindo says.

“There's content for all demographics and ages. Older audiences shouldn't feel like TikTok is only for their kids or grandchildren. It's definitely a place they can both consume content and create something that shares their voice and story,” he says.

Lindo's eight years of study at U of T helped him sharpen his critical thinking abilities and develop an appreciation for different points of view.

“It was a combination of strong faculty and interesting subject matter, but also the quality of my classmates and friendships. People you meet not only become lifelong friends but help you see all the sides of the issues you are studying,” he says.

“I still think a lot about the conversations I had during those years, the dynamic nature of those relationships. It cultivated the way I think and the lenses I have on the world.”

Taking a diverse set of classes in political science, business and law helped him discover where his passions lay, as well as learn to identify and solve problems differently, he adds.

“It's really incumbent on people to make the most of those years in terms of exploring what your interests are, what you're passionate about, exploring what angers you and the things you may want to solve,” he says.

Outside his classes, Lindo took part in student government and clubs – experiences that he also describes as important learning opportunities. After graduation, he has served on more than a dozen boards, including the Children's Aid Society Toronto, Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, Laidlaw Foundation, Ontario Creates, TO Live and NOW Magazine.

“Getting involved in extracurriculars like I did is also a very good parallel to life after school, when you have a regular job, but you're still able to volunteer for other things because you’ve flexed those muscles,” he says.

TikTok teaching? U of T researchers study the social media platform's use in academia

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 16:42:21 +0000

TikTok teaching? U of T researchers study the social media platform's use in academia

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 11/16/2021 - 11:42

Cutline

(Image courtesy of KMDI)

Topic

Our Community

Faculty of Information

Graduate Students

Rersearch & Innovation

Social Media

In a bid to shine a spotlight on their research and make it more accessible, academics around the world are following in the footsteps of their students and taking to TikTok to share videos.

The trend is being highlighted by a team of researchers at the Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) at the ��Ƶ’s Faculty of Information. The researchers looked at the different ways academics, educators and scholarly communities are using TikTok, the popular social media platform that specializes in short-form user-generated videos, to share knowledge – from Gothic architecture explainers to weight loss tips.

In particular, the researchers examined user behaviour, concerns about youth engagement, data and privacy implications, the technical features of the app and the visual aspect of scholarly contribution.

“If watching YouTube is like sitting in a lecture, then using TikTok is like having a conversation,” says study co-lead JP King, a sessional instructor at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design who works as KMDI’s data visualization and graphic designer. “TikTok provides a fun place to create new forms of accessible learning shared outside of classrooms, textbooks, and conference halls.

Led by King and Associate Professor Sara Grimes, director of KMDI, four graduate students with an interest in critical media literacy reviewed TikTok videos made by academics for the study. The team also analyzed more than 100 journal articles, books and research papers focused on TikTok, social media, technology and digital rights. Their study recommends some best practices for academics using TikTok, which ranks as the fourth most popular social media platform after YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram (see below).

The researchers found that TikTok videos often tend to be “amateurish” and offer a peek behind the scenes. The estimated 20 million-plus daily users, who are mostly under 30, embrace a less professional approach and don't feel the need to make everything perfect. They may simply record themselves with their smartphones with no special lighting or makeup. While this might feel out of place on Instagram or YouTube, it is acceptable if not expected on TikTok.

TikTok is also unique in how it encourages active engagement. Users can remix one another’s videos or produce creative responses towards others’ content. At the same time, however, users risk having their video or audio remixed or repurposed without their permission if they don’t adjust their privacy settings accordingly.

“You might make a sincere video explaining your research that someone else turns into a song or a joke,” the study warns academics. “Decide now if you’re comfortable with that possibility.”

The study’s authors attributed the phenomenon at least partly to a generational shift around intellectual property. Without bibliographies or citations, TikTok videos can challenge the sense of ownership that academic communities have traditionally had around ideas. “It’s more difficult to maintain ownership of your ideas online, and you can’t control how people will use your imagery or audio. Researchers must be aware of this fact, and be thoughtful when they are publishing content,” King says.

The researcher say that academics also need to understand the large impact that a single video could have on their personal brand. If their personal views clash with institutional values, there could be pushback from the academic community and repercussions from administrators. Even though tenured faculty members have academic freedom, they may not get a free pass if they use TikTok in ways their colleagues consider out of line, the researchers warn.

What’s more, an outsized social media profile won’t necessarily enhance a scholar’s professional status. “In simple terms, a million followers won't guarantee you tenure or a promotion,” says King.

Above all, it’s a way to spread the word, possibly dispelling popular myths with facts and encouraging an audience to think about a topic from a different perspective. Casey Fiesler, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, runs a popular TikTok account that often challenges viewers to consider the problems with Facebook’s domination of the online experience. It’s possible to imagine a teenager finding one of Fiesler’s videos tucked between dance trends and dog tricks and questioning Facebook for the first time, according to King.

“TikTok offers enormous potential for the discovery of critical ideas,” he says. “This is why using TikTok effectively is crucial. Sharing research with an audience outside of the academy brings together people with diverse educational backgrounds. TikTok offers an exciting new way to find like-minded thinkers, makes research accessible, and start important conversations.”

Here are a few of the study’s recommendations for best practices on how scholarly communities can engage:

Keep your videos short and simple: Less than one minute is ideal because online attention spans are shorter than in-person ones
Use storytelling and humour to make your content more accessible: You are competing with all the other content online, so lighten the mood by telling a story or adding unique humour
Find ways to engage people instead of speaking to them: Invite users to try out an experiment for themselves and create a video reply with their results
Get your data from TikTok so you know what’s being tracked. Remember social media lives forever: You might be surprised by how well TikTok knows you. Download your data and decide for yourself if you are comfortable with TikTok having this information and selling it without your knowledge
Be aware that your video or audio may be remixed or repurposed without your permission, unless you change your privacy settings: You might make a sincere video explaining your research that someone else turns into a song or a joke. Decide now if you’re comfortable with that possibility

Social media's decision to dump Trump too little, too late: U of T's Megan Boler

rahul.kalvapalle — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 21:22:10 +0000

Social media's decision to dump Trump too little, too late: U of T's Megan Boler

rahul.kalvapalle Mon, 01/11/2021 - 16:22

Cutline

(photo by Stephan Schulz/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Topic

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Social Media

Twitter

United States

U.S. President Donald Trump no longer has access to the massive social media following that was a feature of his presidency after Twitter, Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon all took actions to halt or limit his use of their platforms in the wake of last week’s violence on Capitol Hill.

Twitter and Facebook both locked Trump’s accounts, while Apple, Google and Amazon removed the app Parler – favoured by Trump’s supporters and the far right – from their web hosting services.

The moves came after a violent pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers worked to count electoral votes from the presidential election, won by President-elect Joe Biden. Five people died.

U of T News spoke with Megan Boler, a professor in the department of social education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), about how Trump’s presidency has impacted the social media landscape, why social media companies have chosen to act against him now and what the future holds for him and his supporters in the online world.

How vital has social media been to the Trump presidency?

It’s so important to recognize that it was an absolute historical precedent having a president who had a direct, unmediated line of communication to his base in this way.

In the past, we would have had a president holding press correspondent meetings and that would give journalists and editors an opportunity to ask questions and perhaps to mediate some of the lies, but he was essentially able to produce – as everyone has spoken about – “alternative facts,” or an alternative reality with his base, culminating in this last, most damaging lie regarding the allegation that the election had been stolen.

It was absolutely vital to his presidency and part of what was necessary for him to begin to systematically erode the foundations of democracy – both in terms of setting new precedents for how he spoke to his base to his attacks and erosion of trust in the fourth estate and in journalism. So I can’t emphasize strongly enough how vital social media has been.

There have been calls for social media companies to ban Trump’s accounts for some time. Why have they taken this step now?

Most obviously because if they had not, they would have looked so bad and it would’ve hurt their reputation. They simply had to or their integrity would’ve been in question, although for many, it already is and was in question for the past four years – particularly, one could say, since Charlottesville, Va. Because one can argue – and I think one of the most dangerous arguments we’re seeing – is that hate speech equals free speech. And that is something that we have to educate all quarters of the public about.

As long as things remain solely online and solely expressions and text, everybody can say “This is a matter of free speech.” But in the instance of Charlottesville, and in the instance of what we saw happen last week, it was an occasion in which the violence poured over from online to offline, and that was what was particularly disturbing.

People are debating what it was that we witnessed at the Capitol and whether it was actually a coup attempt. I don’t understand how people can even question whether it was, but people seem to question what kind of violence that was – if it was just a mob gone crazy or a one-off.

In any event, it was violence that moved from online into the real world, and that’s part of what pushed this over the edge and forced the social media companies to make this decision.

In making that decision, have companies such as Facebook and Twitter set a precedent by taking responsibility for content published on their platforms?

We’ve seen such a rollercoaster over the past four years in terms of Facebook in particular having been called to the stand to face censure and legislative challenges as to why they are not taking action. So Facebook’s record in terms of not taking any responsibility for what they have fomented is just shocking.

There are occasions – such as when Facebook took InfoWars off [the platform]. So, there are moments here and there where they decide something has gone far enough.

But I think we’re all on the edge of our seats waiting to see what the next move is going to be.

What does the future hold for Trump and his supporters on social media, now that he’s no longer on Twitter and Facebook?

The thing that’s most disturbing is that lots of other stand-ins are doing Trump’s work for him. The far right is extremely well-orchestrated. I suppose in many ways, Trump has clearly been the newly born Christ-figure and saviour of this movement, but I think he has mobilized a movement and there are plenty of other leaders in the wings who can take up that slack. So it doesn’t really matter whether he has a Twitter account or not.

What are they going to do about Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz and other names like Jack Posobiec and Candace Owens? There are plenty of other people who are fomenting the far right and keeping this movement alive and radicalizing new members.

This also touches on something I think is so crucial: In 2017, the scholar and journalist Whitney Philips wrote a study called The Oxygen of Amplification in which she outlined the ways in which journalism has to be so careful about how it reports on this. I have been so disturbed by the repetition of those images that we saw at the Capitol. That is doing the publicity for the far-right and for white supremacists. Those images have emboldened people. That is success for them.

I really hope that, in addition to social media companies taking responsibility for censoring people, we will also take stock of the fact that we have to be very careful with how we report on this.

Could there be a broader fallout for social media companies?

There was a movement after the Cambridge Analytica scandal where there was a big cry to get off Facebook – and many did. In particular, it was not just to get off social media, but specifically to get off Facebook and use different kinds of social platforms. So we may see that.

Right now, the focus isn’t on what the broader public will do but what’s going to happen to the far right. It’s really great that you’re asking that question because it is a moment where we all have to say: “What are the social implications of social media?” We clearly have not taken them seriously enough.

Many would say the genie is out of the bottle, the Pandora’s box has been opened and there is no going back – and I think, in many ways, that is true. So now we’re faced with really difficult questions of legislation, policy and reform – and it’s going to be a long, uphill battle.

What are the lessons to be learned from the social media landscape of Trump’s presidency?

I really fear that it’s too late, but I think some directions are important to think about.

First, we should think about what it would mean to reinvigorate local news because that has just devastated the news media landscape. Local news is essentially happening through these social media platforms. So, thinking about whether there could be greater funding for publicly funded media. That would create shared media that’s responsible for certain kinds of standards. That might be a model to think about. So, really encouraging people to unplug from social media.

The other key aspect of this is demanding there be policies that social media monopolies abide by, and that there be limits on the monopolies. We know that major lawsuits have begun against Facebook and there are hopes that maybe that will have an effect.

As well, thinking about how we’re going to deal with the rise of white supremacy and this kind of fascism is really, really critical. What I mentioned about ensuring that we begin to educate the public about why hate speech is not free speech is really crucial. In my mind, that’s the first and foremost thing because any move that is made right now to limit these other accounts of the far-right is going to be seen as censorship.

So, we need to have really critical public education about what constitutes hate speech and what constitutes free speech – perhaps particularly in Canada because the U.S. does have more of a history of legal debate about this, and I think it’s important for Canada to rethink its legislation around hate speech policy.

How have traditional news media been affected by Trump’s use of social media?

One thing I find really interesting is that Trump has made so much money for media and for the news. He has kept the news alive for four years. So, there’s an interesting tension in the news industry – on the one hand, we can have a great deal of sympathy that the news industry, in light of the internet, has been losing so much revenue and that they have to do what they have to do to stay alive.

That said, after 2016 it was very clear that the news had been responsible for giving Trump an incredible amount of free advertising and publicity – far more than they’d given Hillary Clinton – and that’s because Trump filled news. We have some sort of phenomenal, insane fascination around the world with Trump.

There are real, moral questions about the news having reported on Trump’s Twitter feed because so often those posts were lies and yet the news would repeat them. As we know, that’s highly problematic. The repetition of a lie makes it seem true – and even if you do counter it, it never really succeeds in correcting information.

I’ve noticed that in the absence of Trump having Twitter, there’s still just as much conversation – we’re still talking about it – and I’m so curious to see the extent to which we will continue talking about Trump even when he’s not president. I predict he will still be on the front pages of most of our news sites.

'Adorable' cat video featuring U of T student and her prof goes viral on TikTok

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 03 Nov 2020 14:02:11 +0000

'Adorable' cat video featuring U of T student and her prof goes viral on TikTok

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 11/03/2020 - 09:02

Cutline

In a viral TikTok video, Assistant Professor Adam Hammond (left) wishes his cat Wendy a happy 10th birthday prior to one of his online lectures – a gesture that causes student Samantha Chan (right) to be overcome with emotion (images via TikTok)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Social Media

University College

The ��Ƶ’s Adam Hammond has an unusual achievement to add to his resume: co-starring in a viral cat video.

The assistant professor in the department of English in the Faculty of Arts & Science recently appeared in a TikTok video that racked up hundreds of thousands of views and likes on social media.

Shot and posted by student Samantha Chan, the video shows Hammond – appearing on the screen of Chan’s laptop – kicking off one of his online lectures by introducing students to his cat Wendy, which was celebrating its 10^th birthday. Chan, meanwhile, can be seen teary-eyed and covering her mouth.

“I was trying to share this pure moment with my friends on TikTok,” says Chan, a second-year student in the life science program and a member of University College. “This was so unexpected. The TikTok was made to tell everyone that professors are human, too – they are trying to adjust to the new changes and sometimes they share adorable moments to help us adapt.”

@samanthic
MY PROFESSOR’S CAT’S BIRTHDAY LUV U WENDY
♬ original sound - samanthic

The video has struck a chord since it was first posted on Oct. 17. Offering a lighthearted moment in an otherwise challenging year, it has received more than 734,000 views, 200,000 likes, and 5,300 shares and counting.

“It’s fantastic. I think it's wonderful,” says Hammond. “I've seen it and it's touching and very human, which I think is such a nice element these days.”

Even so, Hammond remains perplexed at the video’s popularity.

“Is it that my cat is cute? Is it the student’s reaction? Is it the weird shirt I'm wearing? I needed to figure it out, so I asked my former students who use TikTok,” he says.

“One student said, ‘Here's the deal: she represents your average student who is going to yet another online class and is feeling isolated and shut in her room. And then out of nowhere, comes this extremely sweet moment where the barriers are lowered. She can relate to it personally and feels a moment of joy in this really unexpected way. And so the floodgates go down and she overreacts to what is a very simple moment.’”

That made perfect sense to Hammond. “People can feel cut off by online learning – you're really missing the human element. So I'm doing everything I can to try to make it a personal experience.”

For Hammond, that includes tours of his living space and showing his students how he’s is coping under difficult conditions.

“I think a lot of students wonder what professors do after class. They can't imagine it – but we’re at home, too,” he says. “When we went into lockdown, I invited the students over to my house for an end-of-term virtual party and it was like a barrier broke down. They got to see me and my natural environment.”

Hammond also breaks up his online lectures with what he calls “cute breaks,” which involve everything from visits by Wendy to glimpses into other aspects of his day-to-day life.

“I would talk about a record I was into or a movie I'd seen just to make it more human and to break down the hierarchy a little,” he says. “I’m just trying to keep in mind what students are going through.”

For his larger classes, Hammond provides some pre-recorded lectures, but also hosts live interactive tutorials that give him the opportunity to get to know his students – something he wouldn’t be able to do on campus.

“It’s not the best circumstances, but I can be a bit more creative in terms of the ways I do things,” he says. “Under normal circumstances, I'd have to get separate rooms for these smaller tutorials, and it just wouldn't be possible logistically.

“We're all in this together. For better or worse, I’m one of their friends now that they're talking to regularly and I try to approach the job in that way.”

As for Chan, she hopes the TikTok video continues to spread its message of empathy for both instructors and students.

“I hope other students can understand that everyone, including our instructors, is struggling through these trying times,” she says.

“Simply turning on your camera during lectures, reacting to questions with a thumbs up or down, having a fun green screenand engaging with your peers and professors can brighten up their day.”

Fun with filters: U of T alumna's designs draw millions of social media users

davidlee1 — Mon, 19 Aug 2019 14:28:26 +0000

Fun with filters: U of T alumna's designs draw millions of social media users

davidlee1 Mon, 08/19/2019 - 10:28

Cutline

U of T Mississauga alumna Lianne Tokey draws inspiration from nature and social media for her Facebook frames and Instagram filter designs, which have drawn millions of users (Image courtesy of Lianne Tokey)

Topic

With millions of users for her Facebook frames and Instagram filter designs, ��Ƶ alumna Lianne Tokey has earned her place among an elite group of developers creating augmented reality filter effects for social media.

Tokey, who graduated with Bachelor of Arts degree in 1998, credits her introduction to digital design to her experience as an undergraduate art and art history student at Erindale College (now U of T Mississauga). Drawn by the mix of academic and studio work, she enrolled in a precursor to U of T Mississauga’s current joint art and art history program with Sheridan College.

It was a move that would set the stage for a successful career in digital design.

“The program gave me the opportunity to try so many different approaches to creating art and in that, I was able to find what really resonated with me,” Tokey says.

She was particularly drawn to sculpture – “I love working in 3D” – and graphic design. “As soon as I was introduced to Photoshop, light bulbs went off. Combined with my passion for sculpture, I knew instantly that it was where I wanted to build my skills.”

Over the next two decades, Tokey worked as a graphic designer and web developer, building her skills in digital design and founding a digital stationary business. “I learned more about basic programming and development to bring my artwork to an interactive level,” she says. “I always kept one eye out for things that were of interest to me and how I could continue to create.”

In 2017, Tokey made her first foray into social media design when she created an independent Facebook profile frame for Canada’s 150^th anniversary celebrations and launched it over the Canada Day long weekend. She was stunned and delighted when her frame went viral, garnering more than half a million users in the first 24 hours. By the end of the holiday weekend, Tokey estimates that two per cent of Canadian Facebook users had picked up her work.

Tokey was hooked. She created more frames, which have been used more than 720 million times on the social media platform. “I never could have imagined that,” she says, noting her simplest frame – a basic white heart – is the most popular.

“It’s universal, and it can be used across the world.”

In 2018, Tokey branched out to create augmented reality filters for use on Instagram. Her first filter, a thought bubble, was approved in 2019 and led to her work with the Instagram Beta Effects Group. Since then, the Oakville designer has created more than 20 filters and built her Instagram audience to 116,000 followers, including many influencers in Brazil and Russia.

Tokey, who draws her design inspiration from nature, taps into emerging trends on social media. When YouTube makeup star James Charles challenged viewers to create a “Bratz Face” that replicated the exaggerated makeup of the popular dolls, Tokey responded with her “Dollface” Instagram filter. “’Dollface’ took off very quickly,” she says. “In the first day, the filter had one million impressions and has since gone into hundreds of millions.”

The phenomenon landed Tokey’s work in the Spanish edition of Cosmopolitan magazine. “You have to be very responsive to trends because the window of opportunity is very short,” she says.

Her Carnival of Brazil themed “Rainha Azul” filter is also popular. “There are a huge number of influencers in Brazil and they are a massive part of my audience,” she says. “Brazil’s influencers are very involved in the stories of Instagram, and using the filters, which really helps to grow the audience there.”

Tokey wants to be “a positive influence” on the digital landscape. “Social media sometimes gets a bad rap, but I really want to change how people are interacting with the social tools,” she says, adding she was intrigued to see her blue speech bubble filter for Bell Canada’s “Bell Let’s Talk Day” mental health campaign take off globally with her followers.

“So many people messaged me privately saying, ‘Thank you for giving us an opportunity to share what we're feeling or what's in our minds or within our hearts. Mental health is an issue that affects people globally. There's a shared collective experience, and the point of conversation starts with the filter.’”

She continues to keep an eye on trends and collaborates with fellow effects creators and corporate partners through an Instagram beta group she joined in January. She is also developing online workshops to share knowledge and spark interest among a new generation of designers.

As for the tools of her trade, Tokey has moved on from her early Photoshop days and now creates her work with Procreate design software on her iPad Pro. “The tools have changed so much, but it's still the same foundation,” she says. “The art and art history program was so valuable to me. As an artist, it’s important to have the opportunity to try many different ways of expressing your creativity. Oftentimes you don't realize what you love until you actually are experiencing it hands-on. I had that opportunity in that program.”

See Tokey’s filters on her website, or follow her at @liannetokey on Instagram

Social media and sexual health: U of T researchers recruit 'health ambassadors' for popular gay networking app

rahul.kalvapalle — Fri, 14 Jun 2019 18:28:45 +0000

Social media and sexual health: U of T researchers recruit 'health ambassadors' for popular gay networking app

rahul.kalvapalle Fri, 06/14/2019 - 14:28

Cutline

As part of a research project, David Brennan, an associate professor at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, is recruiting volunteers to serve as “health ambassadors” on Hornet, a networking app popular among gay men (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Rahul Kalvapalle

Topic

Our Community

Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work

LGBTQ

Pride

Research & Innovation

Social Media

With Pride Month underway, Toronto’s LGBTQ community and allies will be out in large numbers meeting and mingling at events across the city.

But such face-to-face interactions are increasingly the exception to the norm in an age of digital and social media – a trend that poses challenges for those seeking to perform sexual health outreach initiatives among LGBTQ groups.

“On a Saturday night 20 years ago, everyone would be out at a gay bar dancing,” says David Brennan, an associate professor in the ��Ƶ’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work.

“Now, everyone’s at home swiping and watching Netflix. There isn’t the same sense of community.”

It’s a hurdle Brennan and other researchers at U of T’s CRUISElab – an interdisciplinary social work research lab that focuses on the health and well-being of gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men – hope to overcome by using social media apps to promote sexual health and then track the tactic’s effectiveness in reaching the desired audience.

The lab is currently recruiting men for a public-private-academic effort that will see volunteers serve as “health ambassadors” on Hornet, a popular social networking app for gay men.

The health ambassadors, as well as the regular Hornet users who they interact with, will then be given a chance to participate in focus groups and surveys so researchers can learn more about how social media apps, which are increasingly popular among people seeking out sex, romance, friendship and community, can be leveraged for sexual health outreach.

“We want to see whether these types of conversations make a difference in people’s lives, and whether these interactions cause people to take actions to take care of their health and wellness,” says Brennan, who is CRUISElab’s director.

Brennan says social media platforms enable the delivery of sexual health information to those who might not have anyone in their lives to turn to for advice (photo by Drazen via Getty Images)

Some 30 men will be recruited for the study. They will complete a training program designed by the AIDS Committee of Toronto and then have their Hornet profiles highlighted with a badge that marks them out as health ambassadors – meaning they’re open and available to share information about sexual health and discuss their personal experiences.

“We want a diverse range of guys – diverse in terms of race, age, gay or bisexual, trans and also in terms of life experiences,” says Brennan, who was recently appointed the associate dean, research at Factor-Inwentash.

“If you’re a Hornet user and you have questions about PrEP [pre-exposure prophylaxis treatment to reduce the risk of contracting HIV] or being HIV+ or mental health or substance abuse issues, you can ask a health ambassador. They’ve gone through training and they’ll talk to you about their experiences.”

After three months, the health ambassadors will be invited to a focus group to share their thoughts on the project. Next, the regular Hornet users who interacted with them will be invited to fill out a survey to share whether they remember interactions with health ambassadors, learned anything or took any decisions as a result of the interactions.

The project builds on previous work, including a 2015 study led by Brennan that found encouraging results about men’s experiences accessing this kind of sexual health outreach on websites and apps.

Brennan explains that AIDS service organizations have previously experimented with using trained volunteers and staff to deliver outreach services through websites and apps.

“One of our manifestos as social workers is to ‘meet the client where they’re at,’” says Brennan. “If people are online and that’s where they’re connecting with other guys and finding out about sexual health, then we need to be in these apps, too.”

Brennan also notes that social media platforms enable the delivery of important sexual health information to people who might not have anyone in their lives who they’re comfortable turning to for advice.

“If I’m 16 years old, realizing I’m gay and I’m thinking about engaging in sex with other guys, I don’t know that the first person I’m going to talk to is my family physician, my parents or my pastor or religious leader – probably not,” Brennan says.

“But I might be able to find some peers online who can tell me to think about this or that, so I can begin to build a supportive network.”

Hornet was selected as a partner for the study because of its demonstrated commitment to its users’ health and wellness, according to Brennan.

The network, which has over 25 million users, already runs health ambassador programs in various cities around the world, with the first such initiative trialed in Rio de Janeiro during the 2016 Olympic Games.

However, Toronto will be the first city to benefit from a rigorous research evaluation – in the form of the CRUISElab’s study – before any Hornet health ambassador program is launched here.

“If these apps can be used to help build community, that would be amazing,” says Brennan.

“In the future, I see us being able to use apps to very quickly get information and support out to people who need it. That’s what I’m hoping for.”

Computer science faculty member, undergraduate student research social phenomena on Reddit and GitHub

noreen.rasbach — Thu, 09 May 2019 20:19:45 +0000

Computer science faculty member, undergraduate student research social phenomena on Reddit and GitHub

noreen.rasbach Thu, 05/09/2019 - 16:19

Cutline

Fourth-year student Isaac Waller (Ieft) and Assistant Professor Ashton Anderson are working on a research project in computational social science (photo by Diana Tyszko)

Jovana Jankovic

Topic

Our Community

Computer Science

Faculty of Arts & Science

Research & Innovation

Social Media

Technology

U of T Scarborough

Undergraduate Students

Woodsworth College

When we log on to any social media account, we are immediately immersed in our chosen groups, forums, events and conversations. But how does the nature of our engagement with online communities determine how we’ll behave on those platforms in the future, what kinds of interactions we’ll be part of and what types of information we’ll end up taking away?

These are the questions that Ashton Anderson, an assistant professor in the department of computer and mathematical sciences at U of T Scarborough and the tri-campus graduate department of computer science, and undergraduate student Isaac Waller are trying to answer.

Waller is a fourth-year Woodsworth College student in computer science and sociology, two disciplines he didn’t initially think were compatible. But then he came across Anderson’s work in computational social science, an area of research in which computers are used to simulate, model and analyze social phenomena such as human behaviour and communication.

“I sent him an email completely out of the blue,” says Waller, “and we began to meet on campus. Eventually he recommended that we work together on a research project.”

Waller and Anderson decided to work together on a faculty-student computer science project – an opportunity for undergraduates to work one-on-one with a faculty member on a project of mutual interest for a course credit.

“Like most people these days, I’ve been a part of many online communities, some of which feel as real as in-person communities,” says Waller. “Studying how they relate to each other and how they influence the people within them is fascinating.”

In their project, Waller and Anderson took data from the top 10,000 subreddits on Reddit – which account for 96.8 per cent of all comments – and the top 40,000 GitHub communities by number of stars, which are used to mark interesting and relevant content.

They then applied a machine learning model to this data which created embeddings – “sort of like maps,” says Waller – that show the relationships between various online communities.

“Our technique is inspired by the way computational linguists measure how similar words are by looking at which words appear in similar contexts,” says Waller. “In the same way that words with similar usage patterns tend to be similar, communities with similar members tend to be related.”

“After exploring different directions in the study of online communities, we eventually got most excited about looking at generalists and specialists,” says Anderson.

Generalists are users who apply themselves broadly to many topics of interest to them – that is, they probably know a little bit about a lot of different things. Specialists, on the other hand, allocate their energy to a narrow area of focus. They are likely to know a lot about very few specific things.

After identifying generalists and specialists, Anderson and Waller began to explore relationships to how certain posts are “liked,” how long users spend on certain platforms or within certain communities, the diversity of sub-populations with which users interact, the predictability of user behaviour and the kinds of communities with which either generalists or specialists tend to engage.

Their conclusions? “Specialists are more likely to produce higher-quality replies” and “stay in communities they contribute to,” write Waller and Anderson in a forthcoming paper on their research, while “generalists are much more likely to remain on the platform as a whole.”

“We found that generalists engage with a significantly more diverse group of people, whereas specialists are exposed to much narrower segments of the population.”

Waller and Anderson will be presenting their novel methodology in their paper, “Generalists and Specialists: Using Community Embeddings to Quantify Activity Diversity in Online Platforms” at The Web Conference, a prestigious annual international conference about all things relating to the internet, attended not only by top-tier academic researchers, but also by representatives from tech giants like Google, Netflix and Amazon.

What kind of feedback do Waller and Anderson anticipate?

“Our work is so new that people haven't had time to follow up on it yet,” says Anderson. “But our methodology and analysis framework can definitely be used to study questions like the extent to which users are living in political echo chambers online. This is the kind of thing we hope to get people excited about. We have open-sourced some tools that Isaac developed to help people follow up on our work.”

Waller will be presenting the paper on his own at the conference, which takes place in San Francisco in late spring. He’s excited to participate in such a high-level event – a rare experience for an undergraduate student.

“I’ve never given a presentation before to this large of an audience,” he says. “I hope that our work will be of interest to some people and that I might contribute to the current dialogue in this field. Although it has become a popular topic in the news, research into the ways social media influences how we discover new ideas is still in its early stages.”

But it wasn’t only Waller who benefitted from this partnership. Anderson says contributions from undergraduate students like Waller are invaluable. “I love working with undergrads,” he says. “We have such a strong department and many of our undergrads are incredibly bright and eager to work on something completely new.

“It's so rewarding to be mentoring the next generation of promising young students. The energy, enthusiasm and optimism undergrads bring is very refreshing.”

While earning a commerce degree at U of T, the Caleon twins built up a massive social media following

noreen.rasbach — Fri, 21 Dec 2018 05:00:00 +0000

While earning a commerce degree at U of T, the Caleon twins built up a massive social media following

noreen.rasbach Fri, 12/21/2018 - 00:00

Cutline

“In a way, YouTube is our business,” says Madeleine Caleon, who with her sister Samantha are working on their social media brand full time (photo courtesy of the Caleon sisters via Instagram)

Topic

They have nearly 265,000 subscribers on YouTube, 124,000 followers on Instagram, and a whopping 3.3 million fans on TikTok, a site for short-form mobile videos that was formerly known as musical.ly. Meet the Caleon Twins, Samantha and Madeleine.

The twins graduated from the ��Ƶ last month with matching bachelor’s degrees in commerce, after years of taking the same courses together. They are now focusing on building their social media brand full time, hiring a manager to help.

The sisters say they have always wanted to be entrepreneurs. “In a way, YouTube is our business,” says Madeleine Caleon, about their eponymous YouTube channel, Caleon Twins. Their content ranges from clips of the twins performing covers of pop songs and videos of them participating in trending challenges (such as the No Mirror Makeup Challenge) to vlogs about their lives.

They started their YouTube channel during their first year at U of T Mississauga, and hopped on the social music app musical.ly when it was taking off, dancing to popular songs with their carefully choreographed moves. Their YouTube audience grew with their TikTok/musical.ly fan base, and soon the hobby grew into a business, says Samantha Caleon.

“It wasn’t always easy,” says Madeleine about growing their brand while meeting the high demands of their academic work.

Madeleine and Samantha Caleon at their convocation in November: The sisters earned Bachelor of Commerce degrees at U of T Mississauga (photo courtesy of the twins)

Even with a manager, the twins say they are still very much in charge of content. They film for two or three days a week, shooting videos for themselves as well as for the YouTube channels to which they contribute. The rest of the week is spent on publishing that content and attending to the less glamorous, behind-the-scenes work that comes with running a business.

To help manage their time during university, the Caleon sisters took some online classes during their final year and crammed the rest of their required courses into just two days of the week so that they could travel to far-away events and YouTube conventions.

They say they were able to apply some of the marketing concepts they learned in the classroom to strategically increase their influence online. The most important? Authenticity.

“Being genuine, as cliché as it is, is the best way to market yourself to different people online,” says Madeleine.

They are thankful for the guidance of fellow YouTubers who have been down the same road, but they make sure not to conform to what their peers do on social media. And they have learned to be patient.

“It’s not a straight line, or an easy path to reach your goal,” says Samantha.

As for the future of their YouTube channel, Samantha and Madeleine are not worrying about losing relevance. They see vlogging as a way to remain relatable to their audience as they get older together.

They are also connecting in other ways. The twins already have a clothing line on StarSpender, the online shop that allows fans to purchase merchandise from TikTok stars. They plan to develop a separate business outside of their Caleon Twins brand in the future, maybe in fashion.

As their business continues to grow, says Madeleine, “we’re really just living in the moment and taking each day as it comes.”

Who's in control? U of T researcher examines why it's so difficult to disconnect from social media

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 16:45:40 +0000

Who's in control? U of T researcher examines why it's so difficult to disconnect from social media

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 10/18/2018 - 12:45

Cutline

A new book by U of T Mississauga researcher Tero Karppi argues social media users' ability to control their digital lives is at risk (Photo by Future Image/C.Hardt/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

Topic

Academics have spent the last decade studying connectivity and social media – a trend that has more than two billion people around the world on Facebook and counting.

For Tero Karppi, however, the focus has instead been disconnection.

“I always tended to go against the grain,” says Karppi, an assistant professor at the ��Ƶ Mississauga’s Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology who specializes in social media and media theory.

His new book, Disconnect: Facebook’s Affective Bonds, explores the challenges users face when they try to deactivate their Facebook accounts, and how efforts by social media companies to keep users logging in may be giving us less control over our digital lives.

Karppi started researching the topic in his native Finland, where a technology-savvy population enthusiastically began to use Facebook around 2010. “It was becoming a really big thing and expanding widely,” recalls Karppi, who was among the early adopters using the platform to stay current and in touch with far-flung friends, family and colleagues.

“It was an interesting phenomenon – how quickly it spread.”

But he noticed it was also difficult to say goodbye to this increasingly compelling platform. European media artists started to do special “Quit Facebook” projects, while many people tried to give it up simply to avoid the distractions of the medium.

Karppi (left), who came to U of T Mississauga a year ago, says Facebook deactivation became an issue more recently with users concerned about privacy and the company’s use of data.

“The #DeleteFacebook campaign become a trend after the Cambridge Analytica crisis,” he says, “and the news about 50 million hacked Facebook accounts in September will push users to re-think their connectivity.”

Social media companies, not surprisingly, see user disconnection as an existential threat and take wide-ranging efforts to fight it, Karppi says. For example, there are messages with photos saying, “This person will miss you if you leave,” he says. “When it comes right down to it, “leaving is hard or practically impossible for some.

“You lose something.”

Karpi says people who do disconnect often find themselves returning to Facebook because the company makes it easy, letting them pick up their accounts right where they left off.

A combination of factors makes the platform irresistible, he says. That includes engaging content that captures users’ attention and the fact that they are surrounded by a network of friends and followers. “It becomes a habit, a part of your daily life. It’s no longer optional or even something that you deliberately do; you check it like you would look at your watch to see the time.”

Given this passive yet penetrating nature, those who try to disconnect from social media are often lured back in, which ensures an ongoing market for Facebook or whatever future platforms the company offers, Karppi predicts. “I’m quite pessimistic in the sense that I think the social media logic is here and there’s no way to stay out.”

His research at U of T Mississauga includes a new project looking at what happens next for user profiles at companies like Facebook.

“We have everyone liking each others’ photos and you have two billion users. What do you do with them now?” he says. “Social media is part of our lives and we need to understand how it works, who benefits from it and what kind of future we want. Hopefully, we can have an influence over the role that social media plays.”

Students are highly invested in the topic of social media because it is ubiquitous in their circles, he adds. “For teaching, the challenge is to go beyond the daily user experience and show what's behind the interface.”

Karppi himself remains on Facebook, although he’s removed the notifications on his phone so he’s less captivated by the platform’s beeps and buzzes.

“I at least have the illusory feeling of being in control.”