Francesco Pierri

`Welcome to my personal website!`

I am an Assistant Professor in the Data Science group within the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering (DEIB) at Politecnico di Milano. I am also affiliated with Indiana University Bloomington’s Observatory on Social Media (OSOME) and I have been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute.

My research lies at the intersection of Computational Social Science and Artificial Intelligence, focusing on data-driven computer and network science methodologies to explore large-scale online phenomena. A central theme of my work is investigating the transformative impact of generative AI on digital information ecosystems. This includes examining the role of AI in amplifying misinformation and disinformation, as well as developing principled frameworks to ensure the safety, accountability, and integrity of online social platforms in the face of these challenges.

Feel free to reach out via email at: francesco dot pierri at polimi dot it

For a complete list of my publications check my Google Scholar profile.

News

Mar. 2025: Paper accepted at npj Complexity! Check the preprint here: Modeling the amplification of epidemic spread by individuals exposed to misinformation on social media.
Mar. 2025: I will be in Xi’an for a month teaching a course in Data Science at XJTU-Polimi Joint School of Design and Innovation. First time in China for me, I am excited!
Feb. 2025: I gave an online seminar about LLMs and online misinformation to the SODA group at INRIA, it was fun!
Jan. 2025: Paper accepted at NAACL 2025! Stay tuned for the preprint: Can I Introduce My Boyfriend to My Grandmother? Evaluating Large Language Models Capabilities on Iranian Social Norm Classification.
Jan. 2025: Paper accepted at PeerJ Computer Science! Check the preprint here: Comparing diversity, negativity, and stereotypes in Chinese-language AI technologies: a case study on Baidu, Ernie and Qwen.
Jan. 2025: We have a Special Issue at ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology on “Risks and Unintended Harms of Generative AI Systems”.
Deadline: May 31st, 2025.
Jan. 2025: I went to CS2Italy in Trento — the first Italian conference on Computational Social Science — and had an amazing time! We gave four presentations about past and ongoing work: one, two, three and four.
Dec. 2024: I was invited to a roundtable with academics and platforms at the European Commission to discuss about the “delegated act” of the DSA (we also put together a feedback here).
Nov. 2024: Paper accepted at ICWSM 2025! Check the preprint here: Nicer Than Humans: How do Large Language Models Behave in the Prisoner’s Dilemma?
Oct. 2024: I was interviewed by Kai Kupferschmidt on Science about the challenges of research about misinformation! Check the full interview here.
Oct. 2024: Paper accepted at EPJ Data Science! Check it here: Drivers of hate speech in political conversations on Twitter: the case of the 2022 Italian general election.
Oct. 2024: Invited talk at TOFFEe (Tools for Fighting Fakes) final meeting, Scuola IMT Alti Studi in Lucca.
Sept. 2024: Oral presentation at ITADATA 2024 conference and invited talk at the National Research Council in Pisa.
Jul. 2024: I was interviewed by Radio Radicale about our PNAS Nexus paper on discrepancies in political advertising on Meta platforms. You can listen to it here (only Italian unfortunately).
Jul. 2024: Paper accepted at ICWSM 2025! Check the preprint here: Toxic Bias: Perspective API Misreads German as More Toxic
Jul. 2024: Invited talk at the Artificial Intelligence Observatory Research, Politecnico di Milano.
Jul. 2024: Invited talk at the Institute of AI in Management, LMU, Munich.
Jun. 2024: Paper accepted on PNAS Nexus! Check it here: Systematic discrepancies in the delivery of political ads on Facebook and Instagram.
Jun. 2024: Invited talk at CENTAI Institute, Turin.
Jun. 2024: Invited talk at ISI Foundation, Turin.
Jun. 2024: Paper accepted on JEBO! Check it here: Targeted policies and household consumption dynamics: Evidence from high-frequency transaction data.
Jun. 2024: 5th edition of our International Workshop on Cyber Social Threats (CySoc) co-located with ICWSM 2024 (https://cy-soc.github.io/2024/).
May 2024: 1st edition of our “Computational Social Science: Advances, Challenges and Opportunities” in beautiful Villa del Grumello, as part of Lake Como School of Advanced Studies (https://css.lakecomoschool.org/).
Feb. 2024: Invited talk at the D-MTEC, ETH Zurich.
Feb. 2024: Talk at EDMO Scientific Conference 2024 in Amsterdam: “Misinformed populations amplify the spread of disease”.

Activities

Program Committee for: CSCW (2022), ICWSM (2022-25), The ACM Web Conference (2024-2025), CIKM (2022-24), ACM WebSci (2022-25), IC2S2 (2023-24)
Co-chair International workshop on Cyber Social Threats (CySoc) Workshop series (@ICWSM’22, @TheWebConf’23, @ICWSM’24)
Associate Editor, EPJ Data Science, Springer
Associate Editor, PLoS One
Guest Editor Special Issue on “Risks and Unintended Harms of Generative AI Systems” ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology – deadline 30 May 2025
Lead Guest Editor Special Issue on “Computational Approaches for Cyber Social Threats” EPJ Data Science, Springer
Coordinator Ph.D. School “Computational Social Science: Advances, Challenges and Opportunities” (1st edition) as part of Lake Como School of Advanced Studies (https://css.lakecomoschool.org/, May 2024)

Thesis Proposals

If you are Master student at Politecnico di Milano and are interested in working on one of the topics below send me an email with your CV and transcript of records:

Auditing social media platforms for Teen usage via sockpuppet accounts
Simulating social media platforms with Large Language Models
Understanding memes with Large Language Models
Studying human behaviour in online multiplayer games (e.g. League of Legends, DOTA)
Investigating conspiracy theories on TikTok and YouTube

`Welcome to my personal website!`

`News`

`Activities`

`Thesis Proposals`