Topic description and stories

Members of the audience take pictures as President Barack Obama participates in a town hall meeting moderated by CEO Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. April 20, 2011

Opinion: What can we learn about you from just one click?

14 Nov 2017

How effective is psychological targeting in advertising? Dr Sandra Matz, a former PhD student at Cambridge now based at Columbia University, and her...

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Celebrity Twitter accounts display ‘bot-like’ behaviour

02 Aug 2017

‘Celebrity’ Twitter accounts – those with more than 10 million followers – display more bot-like behaviour than users with fewer followers, according...

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Barbed wire

Internet censorship: making the hidden visible

14 Oct 2016

Despite being founded on ideals of freedom and openness, censorship on the internet is rampant, with more than 60 countries engaging in some form of...

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Gentrification in Progress

Predicting gentrification through social networking data

13 Apr 2016

Data from location-based social networks may be able to predict when a neighbourhood will go through the process of gentrification, by identifying...

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Opinion: Here’s how tweets and check-ins can be used to spot early signs of gentrification

12 Apr 2016

Desislava Hristova (Computer Laboratory) discusses how data from location-based social networks can be used to predict when a neighbourhood will go...

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Map showing levels of international friendship by country

Facebook data suggests people from higher social class have fewer international friends

10 Sep 2015

New study using Facebook network data, including a dataset of over 57 billion friendships, shows correlation between higher social class and fewer...

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Facebook's Infection

Computers using digital footprints are better judges of personality than friends and family

12 Jan 2015

Researchers have found that, based on enough Facebook Likes, computers can judge your personality traits better than your friends, family and even...

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Welsh Twitter

Welsh Twitter: capturing language change in real time

29 May 2013

A database of Welsh tweets is being used to identify the characteristics of an evolving language.

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Graphic from mypersonality app

Digital records could expose intimate details and personality traits of millions

11 Mar 2013

Research shows that intimate personal attributes can be predicted with high levels of accuracy from ‘traces’ left by seemingly innocuous digital...

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Thinkin' about the code

Are we being sold online?

27 Oct 2012

A panel discussion for the Festival of Ideas examines whether social media giants are profiting from our willingness to share the most intimate...

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108 High Resolution Dark Denim Social Media Icons

Cambridge ranked ‘most visible’ on social networks

23 Feb 2012

A ranking produced by Econsultancy has listed the University’s website as the most visible Russell Group website on some of the biggest social media...

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