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We present a real-world deployment of secure multiparty computation to predict political preference from private web browsing data. To estimate aggregate preferences for the 2024 U.S. presidential election candidates, we collect and analyze secret-shared data from nearly 8000 users from August 2024 through February 2025, with over 2000 daily active users sustained throughout the bulk of the survey. The use of MPC allows us to compute over sensitive web browsing data that users would otherwise be more hesitant to provide. We collect data using a custom-built Chrome browser extension and perform our analysis using the CrypTen MPC library. To our knowledge, we provide the first implementation under MPC of a model for the learning from label proportions (LLP) problem in machine learning, which allows us to train on unlabeled web browsing data using publicly available polling and election results as the ground truth.more » « lessFree, publicly-accessible full text available December 4, 2026
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Free, publicly-accessible full text available February 27, 2026
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Abstract We develop a broadly applicable class of coevolving latent space network with attractors (CLSNA) models, where nodes represent individual social actors assumed to lie in an unknown latent space, edges represent the presence of a specified interaction between actors, and attractors are added in the latent level to capture the notion of attractive and repulsive forces. We apply the CLSNA models to understand the dynamics of partisan polarization in US politics on social media, where we expect Republicans and Democrats to increasingly interact with their own party and disengage with the opposing party. Using longitudinal social networks from the social media platforms Twitter and Reddit, we quantify the relative contributions of positive (attractive) and negative (repulsive) forces among political elites and the public, respectively.more » « less
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Predicting election outcomes is of considerable interest to candidates, political scientists, and the public at large. We propose the use of Web browsing history as a new indicator of candidate preference among the electorate, one that has potential to overcome a number of the drawbacks of election polls. However, there are a number of challenges that must be overcome to effectively use Web browsing for assessing candidate preference—including the lack of suitable ground truth data and the heterogeneity of user populations in time and space. We address these challenges, and show that the resulting methods can shed considerable light on the dynamics of voters’ candidate preferences in ways that are difficult to achieve using polls.more » « less
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