News
When the Feed Becomes the Front Line
UMD’s Cody Buntain is developing AI tools to analyze social media imagery from global conflicts, helping analysts establish ground truth while investigating the reliability of human-AI decision-making.
How Images Reflect AI’s Dark ‘Spiral’
UMD’s Cody Buntain shows how generative AI outputs can skew negative, even after positive prompting.
Americans, Anxious About AI’s role in the Election, May Not Know its Full Scope, Expert Says
UMD's Cody Buntain revealed AI's “unseen” role in elections, from shaping social media feeds to fueling echo chambers and enabling targeted ads, in News From the States.
Critics Miffed as Meta Restricts Access to Content Monitoring Tool
GW’s Rebekah Tromble and UMD’s Cody Buntain expressed mixed reactions to Meta’s plans to replace its data tool, CrowdTangle, with a new one named Meta Content Library coming this August.
To Like or Not to Like: Facebook at 20
As the world's biggest social media network turns 20, UMD’s Cody Buntain says the company hasn't lived up to its potential to be a positive global force.
Addressing Gaps in Data Governance to Promote Trust in Generative AI
TRAILS partnered with the Digital Trade and Data Governance Hub to host a conference to identify gaps in data governance related to large language models and discuss ideas to address them.
Tracking Emotions on Social Media to Predict Which Posts Go Viral
UMD’s Cody Buntain is the co-author of a study that strives to understand the emotion theories that play into social media sharing.
Buntain Builds Digital Tools to Combat Misinformation
UMD’s Cody Buntain works to make the online information ecosystem a more informative, higher-quality space by enhancing its resistance to manipulation.
Study Sheds Light on How Deplatforming After the Jan. 6 Riot Impacted the Larger Online Ecosystem
UMD’s Cody Buntain is part of a research team that examined the effects of deplatforming on online discourse and alternative social media platforms on the aftermath of the January 6 Capitol riot.
Use of Twitter Helped Taliban Regain Control in Afghanistan, Researchers Find
UMD’s Cody Buntain is part of a team of researchers who found that Twitter was a strategic tool for Taliban operations in overthrowing the Afghanistan leadership during the country’s civil war.
Are Influence Campaigns Trolling Your Social Media Feeds?
UMD’s Cody Buntain is working with a team of researchers using machine learning tools to understand how foreign powers are trying to shape political discussions on social media, and devise ways to curtail it.