Mining the online infosphere: A survey

Abstract

The evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based systems and applications have pervaded everyday life to make decisions that have a momentous impact on individuals and society. With the staggering growth of online data, often termed as the online infosphere, it has become paramount to monitor the infosphere to ensure social good as AI-based decisions are severely dependent. This survey aims to provide a comprehensive review of some of the most important research areas related to the infosphere, focusing on the technical challenges and potential solutions. The survey also outlines some of the important future directions. We begin by focussing on the collaborative systems that have emerged within the infosphere with a special thrust on Wikipedia. In the follow-up, we demonstrate how the infosphere has been instrumental in the growth of scientific citations and collaborations, thus fuelling interdisciplinary research. Finally, we illustrate the issues related to the governance of the infosphere, such as the tackling of the (a) rising hateful and abusive behavior and (b) bias and discrimination in different online platforms and news reporting.