BEGIN:VCALENDAR PRODID:-//Columba Systems Ltd//NONSGML CPNG/SpringViewer/ICal Output/3.3- M3//EN VERSION:2.0 CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20250917T115507Z DTSTART:20251003T150000Z DTEND:20251003T160000Z SUMMARY:Digital Trust and Security Seminar Series: Dr Chester & Dr Lane UID:{http://www.columbasystems.com/customers/uom/gpp/eventid/}eq6-mfnxd4j w-46knwt DESCRIPTION:Talk Title: Automated Data Collection from Politically Restri cted Social Media Platforms: Challenges and insights from China and Russ ia\n\nJoin us for a webinar to learn about the automated web-scraping te chniques developed by Dr. Patrick Chester (Stevens Institute of Technolo gy\, New Jersey) and Dr. Justin E. Lane (CulturePulse\, Bratislava\, Slo vakia) for extracting content from Russian and Chinese social media plat forms. Dr Chester’s recent paper (‘Divide to Conquer: Using Wedge Narrat ives To Influence Diaspora Communities’\, co-written with Dr Audrye Wong at the University of Southern California) is one of the first efforts t o successfully retrieve and analyse the full text of WeChat subscription account posts at a large scale. Dr Justin Lane has developed an AI syst em to access and retrieve content from Russian social media platforms\, such as VK and Telegram\, as well as from social media platforms in othe r tightly restricted contexts. He has worked extensively with NGOs and g overnments that have used his technology to counter and monitor the spre ad of disinformation.\n\nSpeaker Biographies:\n\nPatrick Chester is an A ssistant Professor of Quantitative Social Science at the School of Human ities\, Arts\, and Social Sciences at Stevens Institute of Technology. H e received his PhD from New York University’s Politics Department and wo rked as a postdoctoral researcher at the China Data Lab at UC\, San Dieg o. In his research\, he uses word embeddings\, large language models\, a nd other computational methods to explore how and why media actors in au thoritarian regimes disseminate disinformation and propaganda. Additiona lly\, he has helped bring tools from the data science community to a bro ader audience by developing tools for\, such as generating keywords with the keyclust R package. His research appears in journals such as Confli ct Studies and the Journal of Health Politics\, Policy\, and Law.\n\nDr Lane is the CEO of the US-Slovak AI company\, CulturePulse. He holds a d octorate in cognitive anthropology from the University of Oxford and has authored over 100 academic papers\, conferences\, and lectures. His boo k\, Understanding Religion through Artificial Intelligence\, explores ho w AI can be used to study culture and complex social behaviour. CultureP ulse has worked with organisations such as the UN\, to create digital tw ins of social systems to address real-world threats to social cohesion. More information on this work can be found here.\n\nConnect with the Cen tre for Digital Trust and Society\n\nThe Centre for Digital Trust and So ciety organises the DTS Guest Seminar Series and is a focal point for re search across the University of Manchester that explores aspects of trus t and security in our digital world. The Centre is part of Digital Futur es\, a highly interdisciplinary network which operates across the whole range of the University of Manchester's digital research.\n\nAbout Digit al Futures:\n\nDigital Futures is a highly interdisciplinary network tha t operates across the whole range of the University’s digital research. We aim to present a coherent overview of The University of Manchester's digital research activity to external stakeholders and bring together re search communities to explore new research areas and address strategic o pportunities.\n\nConnect with us:\n\nX: twitter.com/DigitalUoM\n\nBlue S ky: bsky.app/profile/digitaluom.bsky.social\n\nLinkedin: linkedin.com/sh owcase/digital-futures-at-the-university-of-manchester\n\nWebsite: digit alfutures.manchester.ac.uk\n\nNewsletter: tinyurl.com/digitalfuturesuom STATUS:TENTATIVE TRANSP:TRANSPARENT CLASS:PUBLIC END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR