I am a Systems Engineering PhD student at Boston University, advised by Prof. Gianluca Stringhini. I am also a member of SeclabBU and iDramaLab.

My current research focuses on applying data-driven approaches to investigate how misinformation spreads over Web communities, e.g., Twitter, Reddit, 4chan, and Gab. In particular, we build computational pipelines by leveraging quantitative methods (machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, statistical inference) to measure the effects of misinformation. Thus, our research helps people better understand the misinformation propagation and provides a basis for mitigating the malicious impact.

Research interests

• Computational Social Scince
• Social Computing
• Social Media Analysis

Education

• Ph.D. in Systems Engineering, Boston University, 2017-2022 (expected)
• M.S. in Systems Analysis and Integration, Zhejiang University, 2013-2016
• B.E. in Automation, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 2009-2013

Recent projects

Fauxtography on Web communities

This project investigated fauxtography (images manipulated to spread misinformation) shared on Web communities (Twitter, Reddit, and 4chan). We found that posts containing fauxtography significantly increases users’ engagements (e.g., #likes,#retweets). We also found that fauxtography are typically shared as memes.

Understanding the Use of Fauxtography on Social Media
Yuping Wang, Fatemeh Tahmasbi, Jeremy Blackburn, Barry Bradlyn, Emiliano De Cristofaro, David Magerman, Savvas Zannettou, and Gianluca Stringhini.
ICWSM, 2021.

News stories on Web communities

This project studied on news stories shared on Web communities (Twitter, Reddit, Gab, and 4chan). We characterized users’ preference on these Web communities, and analyzed mutual influences between these online communities by using Hawkes Processes.

A Multi-Platform Analysis of Political News Sharing and Discussion
Yuping Wang, Savvas Zannettou, Jeremy Blackburn, Barry Bradlyn, Emiliano De Cristofaro, and Gianluca Stringhini.
Under review.

Skills

• Languages: Python, SQL, Matlab, C, and LaTeX
• Operating Systems: Linux, Windows
• Other tools: Faktory (a parallel processing tool supporting Python), Microsoft Office