University of Washington Center for an Informed Public undergraduate research assistant Joseph S. Schafer, a fourth-year computer science student minoring in ethics, has been awarded a Mary Gates Research Scholarship that will help support his ongoing research with Kate Starbird and Emma Spiro, both CIP co-founders.
Funded through the Mary Gates Endowment for Students, Mary Gates Research Scholarships are competitive scholarships intended to enhance the educational experiences of UW undergraduate students while they are engaged in research guided by faculty.
With Starbird, a Human Centered Design & Engineering associate professor, and Spiro, an Information School associate professor, Schafer is measuring “spotlighting” events — when prominent social media accounts amplify content from far smaller individuals — in order to determine better methods for detecting these events as well as measuring the long-term effects of such amplification on the spread of misinformation.
Schafer, who is from Mukilteo, Washington, has contributed to various CIP research projects and collaborations, including the Election Integrity Partnership and the Virality Project.
He is the co-author of “‘Censorship-free’ platforms: Evaluating content moderation policies and practices of alternative social media,” a paper recently accepted for publication in The University of Leicester’s for(e)dialogue journal. A preprint is available here.
“Joey has been a critical member of our research team over the last few years, often as a collaborator on large-scale projects,” said Starbird, who serves as the CIP’s faculty director. “Through this independent project, he will provide insight into how ‘influence’ is developed, employed, and conferred in social media discourse.”
