{"682536":{"#nid":"682536","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Defense by Daniel Nkemelu ","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETitle\u003C\/strong\u003E: Tackling Online Threats to Democracy with AI in High-Stakes Low-Resource Contexts\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDate\u003C\/strong\u003E: June 5, 2025\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETime\u003C\/strong\u003E: 9:00 AM - 11:30 AM EST\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELocation\u003C\/strong\u003E: Hybrid\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn-person: CODA C1115 Druid Hills\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EVirtual: \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/j\/96147988023?pwd=TXhH2c861qhgrzlLru3t5uRc4cb7V3.1\u0022 title=\u0022https:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/j\/96147988023?pwd=TXhH2c861qhgrzlLru3t5uRc4cb7V3.1\u0022\u003EJoin Zoom\u0026nbsp;Meeting\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/j\/96147988023?pwd=TXhH2c861qhgrzlLru3t5uRc4cb7V3.1\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/j\/96147988023?pwd=TXhH2c861qhgrzlLru3t5uRc4cb7V3.1\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDaniel\u0026nbsp;K.\u0026nbsp;Nkemelu\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPh.D. Candidate, Human-Centered Computing\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESchool of Interactive Computing\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECollege of Computing\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Michael L. Best (co-advisor) \u2013 School of Interactive Computing and Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Irfan Essa (co-advisor) \u2013 School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Ellen Zegura \u2013 School of Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Munmun De Choudhury \u2013 School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Neha Kumar \u2013 School of Interactive Computing and Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Monojit Choudhury - Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbstract:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe spread of hate speech, disinformation, and harmful online narratives threatens democracy, especially in low-resource, high-stakes contexts where civil society organizations (CSOs) lack the capacity to respond to these threats effectively. The inability of CSOs to monitor and intervene in these contexts worsens societal vulnerabilities and weakens trust in democratic processes. AI algorithms and tools have the potential to support under-resourced civic actors as they grapple with these challenges. However, their benefits have not been extensively demonstrated in real-world contexts and present a gap in the literature.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis dissertation demonstrates across multiple studies that AI can support under-resourced civic actors, such as social media monitors and fact-checkers, as they monitor and respond to harmful content online. I draw on the democratic resilience theory as a lens that centers civic society as key stakeholders in democracy building and adopt a participatory AI methodology to confront these challenges in collaboration with stakeholders in Myanmar and Nigeria. I begin by unpacking the manual, time-consuming, and costly nature of hate speech data work in Burmese. I show that despite significant effort, too little usable data was produced to support machine learning modeling. I built on these findings to develop a context-sensitive hate speech data augmentation method. I demonstrated that the novel approach saves significant time and cost and produces reliable data for training hate speech detection models. Next, I evaluated a real-world deployment of a machine learning system to support social media monitoring during the Myanmar 2020 Presidential elections and demonstrate, through a mixed-method study, a significant post-model deployment increase in the proportion of actionable hate posts flagged by monitors.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI conducted an interview study with fact-checkers in Nigeria to investigate existing AI use in fact-checking workflows and identify gaps for AI augmentation. The findings from this study revealed minimal integration of AI tools in fact-checking workflows and surfaced a range of technological, organizational, and environmental barriers to adoption. In response, I developed ClaimFinder, a high-precision AI agent-based system to support fact-checkers in sourcing check-worthy claims from social media. ClaimFinder evaluation results show high accuracy on a social media dataset and strong alignment between the system\u0027s rankings and fact-checkers\u0027 expert judgment.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis dissertation emphasizes that AI can play a significant role in augmenting civic actors\u0027 workflows and helping them respond more effectively to online threats. I argue, however, that AI must be seen as one component within a broader ecosystem of democratic strengthening efforts, not as a stand-alone remedy for these complex social problems.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETackling Online Threats to Democracy with AI in High-Stakes Low-Resource Contexts\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Tackling Online Threats to Democracy with AI in High-Stakes Low-Resource Contexts"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2025-05-27 14:02:38","changed_gmt":"2025-05-27 14:03:10","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2025-06-05T09:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2025-06-05T11:30:25-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2025-06-05T11:30:25-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2025-06-05 13:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2025-06-05 15:30:25","gmt_time_end_last":"2025-06-05 15:30:25","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"CODA C1115 Druid Hills","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"100811","name":"Phd Defense"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}