Into the Multiverse of Shuihe
Social media has transformed people’s ability to share information. However, social media also provides channels for communication and coordination with others to mobilise collective actions, enabling the rise of violent conflict events such as hate crimes, attacks and protests.
In this project, Shuihe and her supervisor focus on policy changes by WhatsApp, specifically limiting forwarding and group size, and examine how these policy changes reduce the spread of misinformation, explosive or hate-filled content, and prevent violent events. Exploiting high-frequency data on conflict events, we examine whether policy changes were effective in reducing conflict, especially around potentially flash points.