PhD defense of Azza Bouleimen
Congratulations to Azza Bouleimen for defending her PhD thesis “Towards Intervention Policies on Social Media for a Better Society: Understanding User’s Behavior and Validating Generative Simulations” 🎉
In dissertation, starting from the observation on social media harms (ex: misinformation and toxicity) and their negative impact on individuals and society, Azza Bouleimen studied ways to design intervention policies to curb these harms. Her research drove her to investigate users’ behavior when it comes to coping with misinformation, as well as studying community toxic dynamics on social media. In a second phase, she focused on simulating social media using Large Language Models. Specifically, she focused on the validation aspects of such systems.
Her research was conducted between the Social Computing Group at IfI and ISIN at SUPSI in Lugano, with the joint supervision of Prof. Aniko Hannak (UZH) and Prof. Silvia Giordano (SUPSI).