The proliferation of social networks and their areas of use is at the centre of political and social debate, affecting concepts such as freedom of expression and democracy.

The massive spread of misinformation and inappropriate content is indeed an increasing problem for both private subjects and public institutions. In this regard, the attention paid to the regulation of social platforms and the management of their moderation policies is gradually increasing.

To date, however, it is difficult to understand and manage the manipulation of online information due to limited data access to statistics, metrics and algorithms of social platforms. Similarly, it is complicated to assess which are the best strategies (e.g. decreasing the visibility of content, suspending accounts, etc.) to put in place for the mitigation of malicious posts in relation to different actors, situations and socio-political contexts.

The project CARISMA, Call for Regulation support in Social MediA, financed by the Fondo nazionale svizzero per la ricerca scientifica (FNS), is part of this framework with the aim of defining a clear, traceable and replicable methodology capable of developing policy guidance to prevent or limit harmful or illegal behaviour by online actors.

This will form the basis for platforms and regulators in any country to react in a timely manner to situations of social media abuse by devising effective and transparent policy interventions.

Started at the beginning of January 2023 and running for four years, CARISMA is led by the Istituto sistemi informativi e networking (ISIN) of the SUPSI Innovative Technologies Department. The project is conducted in collaboration with the Università di Zurigo, Indiana University (USA), University of Southern California (USA) and St. Polten University of Applied Science (Austria).

"As evidenced by recent events, such as the Capitol Hill revolt, the attempted coup in Brazil, but also the disinformation campaigns during the pandemic or relating to the war in Ukraine, regulation of social media is urgently needed. We are very proud to lead this research, whose importance has already been confirmed by the publication of the article Using Science to Guide Social Media Regulation son Tech Policy Press", comments Silvia Giordano, Professor at ISIN and project leader.

Article:

• Using Science to Guide Social Media Regulation (Tech Policy Press)