Strategic Design to Improve Information Integrity

Speaker 

Yiling Chen, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

When information is generated, collected and spread by people, ensuring the integrity of information is critical for downstream use of the information. In this talk, I will discuss some of our efforts in improving information integrity through intentional design. I will mainly focus on a recent effort where we propose using information design as a tool for social media platforms to combat the spread of misinformation. As platforms can predict the popularity and misinformation states of to-be-shared posts, and users are motivated to only share popular content, platforms can strategically reveal this informational advantage to persuade users to not share misinformed content. We characterize the platform’s optimal information design scheme and resulting utility when platform has access to an imperfect classifier for predicting post states. 

3:30pm - Pre-talk meet and greet teatime - 219 Prospect Street, 13 floor, there will be light snacks and beverages in the kitchen area.
Yiling Chen’s website
The Zoom link