Social networks and collective intelligence: A return to the Agora

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  2. Dr Manuel Mazzara
  3. Luca Biselli
  4. Pier Greco
Author(s)Mazzara M, Biselli L, Greco PP, Marraffa A, Qamar N, De Nicola S
Publication type Report
Series TitleSchool of Computing Science Technical Report Series
Year2012
DateJune 2012
Report Number1340
Pages24
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Nowadays, acquisition of trustable information is increasingly important in both professional and private contexts. However, establishing what information is trustable and what is not, it is a very challenging task. For example, how can information quality be reliably evaluated? How can sources credibility be fairly assessed? How can gatekeeping processes be found credible when filtering out news and deciding orders and priorities of traditional media? We are studying an Internet-based solution to a human-based ancient problem and we call this solution Polidoxa, from Greek poly, meaning many or several, and doxa, meaning "common belief" or "popular opinion". This old problem will be solved by means of ancient philosophies and processes with truly modern tools and technologies. This is why this paper required a collaborative and interdisciplinary joint effort from researchers with very different backgrounds and institutes with significantly different agendas. Polidoxa offers: 1) a trust- based search engine algorithm exploiting stigmergic behaviours of users' network; 2) a trust-based social network, where the notion of trust derives from network activity; 3) a holonic system for bottom-up self-protection and social privacy. By presenting the Polidoxa solution, this work also describes the current state of traditional media as well as new media, giving an accurate analysis of search engines such as Google and social network (e.g. Facebook). The advantages that Polidoxa offers, compared to these, are also clearly detailed and motivated. Finally, a Twitter application (polidoxa@twitter) is introduced, which enables experimentation of basic Polidoxa principles.
InstitutionSchool of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Place PublishedNewcastle upon Tyne
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