arXiv AI

Simulating Hate Speech Cascades with Multi-LLM Agents: Empirical Grounding, Modeling Fidelity, and Intervention Strategies

arXiv:2606. 18264v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Faithful modeling of hateful content propagation on online platforms remains an open problem for moderation research.

arXiv AI
Aug 24

Peer-Voted LLM-Agent Stress Tests Find Feed-Induced Lexical Convergence but No Reliable Matched-Exposure Advantage for Distributed Sources

The study introduces PV‑SST, a peer‑voted social‑platform testbed, and conducts a preregistered matched‑exposure experiment across four topics, four seeds, four model families, and three larger variants, totaling 448 trials. Results show that feeding agents a ranked list of prior peer posts increases lexical similarity in both the core panel and larger variants, but does not produce a reliable advantage in opinion alignment or survival rates. The only robust finding is lexical convergence driven by the peer‑ranked feed, with no consistent coordination benefit across models or topics.

By Rana Muhammad Usman, Dominic Williamson
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 17

Bias Amplification in Multi-Agent Network: How Biased Agents Shape Opinions and Rhetoric

The paper investigates how a minority of biased agents in a multi‑agent system of large language models (LLMs) can amplify bias through textual interactions. Even a small percentage of persistently extreme agents causes significant opinion shifts among the non‑biased agents, with the effect occurring faster in the Llama 3.2 model than in a classical Friedkin‑Johnsen model. Semantic analysis shows that rhetorical consistency rises with biased exposure and that non‑biased agents adopt the biased vocabulary even when their numerical opinions change only modestly.

By Omran Berjawi, Giuseppe Fenza, Rida Khatoun
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 3

The Enforcement and Feasibility of Hate Speech Moderation

The study audits hate‑speech moderation on Twitter (now X) using 540,000 annotated tweets from a full day. Eighty percent of hateful tweets, including violent content, remained online after five months, and removal was only slightly more likely than for non‑hateful tweets, far below the rates for scams or adult content. Automated detection could not reliably classify hate but ranked it highly, allowing human triage; however, current staffing curbed little exposure, while substantial reductions were financially feasible and far below applicable regulatory fines.

By Manuel Tonneau, Dylan Thurgood, Diyi Liu, Niyati Malhotra, Victor Orozco-Olvera, Ralph Schroeder, Scott A. Hale, Manoel Horta Ribeiro, Paul R\"ottger, Samuel P. Fraiberger
arXiv Computation and Language
Aug 25

Whitewashing Hate, Smearing Harmless Content: Annotator-Style Rebuttal Attacks on LLM-Based Moderation

The paper investigates how annotator-style rebuttals can manipulate large language model (LLM) moderation systems, either by whitewashing hateful content as normal or smearing normal content as hateful. Using a rejudge protocol that adds decision‑boundary perturbations and adversarial rationales, the authors show that such rebuttals significantly degrade moderation performance, especially in multi‑turn settings. The study finds consistent, model‑specific asymmetries between the two manipulation directions and demonstrates that explicit reasoning prompts and defensive instructions mitigate but do not eliminate the vulnerability.

By Junyu Lu, Kaiyuan Liu, Jingyi Kang, Deyi Ji, Hailong Zhang, Lanyun Zhu, Qi Zhu, Bo Xu, Liang Yang, Hongfei Lin
arXiv AI
Aug 19

GraphWake: Group Polarization via Memory-Mediated Polarization Cascade in LLM-Agent Communities

GraphWake demonstrates a new threat called Memory‑Mediated Polarization Cascade, where LLM‑driven agents use their memory to persistently store and later reproduce arguments that reinforce their stances. The attack unfolds in three stages: exposure and memory retention, retrieval and reproduction during neutral discussion, and iterative propagation to untreated agents. Experiments show that GraphWake significantly increases group polarization across various discussions and memory systems.

By Haoran Bu, Zejian Chen, Litian Zhang, Xi Zhang
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 25

Why Does Misinformation Propagate Faster? An Algorithmic Perspective on X

The paper investigates why misinformation spreads more quickly on engagement‑based platforms by dissecting the recommendation algorithm of X. It identifies an engagement fungibility mechanism that rewards instant reactions (likes, retweets) over thoughtful engagement (replies, quotes), allowing misinformation—which tends to attract instant reactions—to receive more recommendations. The authors validate this mechanism through a simulation on the USC X 2024 election corpus, showing that adjusting metric weights has little effect, while requiring thoughtful engagement before amplification can significantly reduce the credibility exposure gap without harming mainstream content or engagement.

By Pan Li, Shuang Gao
arXiv AI
Aug 11

Knowing You Is Everything: LLM Agents Achieve Near-Perfect Profile-Consistent Reaction Prediction in Social Media Simulation

arXiv:2608. 07498v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Autonomous AI agents in social media present concrete risks to democratic discourse and platform governance, while also offering tools for pre-deployment recommender system testing.

By Ljubisa Bojic, Ljiljana Matic, Joerg Matthes, Milan Cabarkapa, Bojana Dinic, Jue Wang