iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Digital Security Research Collaboratory Neu-Ulm @dsrc.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

1/6 Why do AI “looksmaxxing” apps so often give young men a harsh first score? Our researcher, @cvdavid.bsky.social, explains in a new @news.abc.net.au long read on the business of telling young men they’re not attractive enough.

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Digital Security Research Collaboratory Neu-Ulm @dsrc.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

So we read the two sources against each other, and they don't fully agree. Written for the world, the manifesto rejects the incel label. Written for the forum, the posts debate incel narratives openly, even solutions to female "hypergamy" (screenshot recreated from archived data). 3/7

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Digital Security Research Collaboratory Neu-Ulm @dsrc.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

As a proof of concept, we tested CAP on 400 memes, measuring how much task performance survives each transformation, alongside pixel-level and meaning-level similarity to the original image. 7/9

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Digital Security Research Collaboratory Neu-Ulm @dsrc.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

The field has long known a privacy-utility trade-off: the more you protect personal data, the more model performance you tend to lose. We generalise it to a compliance-utility trade-off, one that spans privacy and copyright together, not privacy alone. 4/9

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Digital Security Research Collaboratory Neu-Ulm @dsrc.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

The key move: these aren't fixed states, they're transitions. Independence slides into dependency when AI replaces thinking. Learning turns into skill loss when use stays shallow. Productivity quietly costs connection. The model maps how one becomes the other. 7/8

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Digital Security Research Collaboratory Neu-Ulm @dsrc.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Looksmaxxing is often framed as self-improvement. But when does optimizing one’s appearance become a worldview that explains almost everything? Our colleague Christopher David discussed this in a recent #Tagesthemen segment on ARD, Germany’s largest public broadcaster. 1/5

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Digital Security Research Collaboratory Neu-Ulm @dsrc.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

How does extremist ideology travel into mainstream TikTok feeds - without looking like classic extremist propaganda? 👀 A Thread 🧵 1/10

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Digital Security Research Collaboratory Neu-Ulm @dsrc.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

A key reason was a trade-off: More time spent chatting with the copilot often meant less time exploring actual search results. 6/8

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Digital Security Research Collaboratory Neu-Ulm @dsrc.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

What if AI in search stopped giving answers — and started helping people evaluate information more critically? 1/8

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Digital Security Research Collaboratory Neu-Ulm @dsrc.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

AI-powered “looksmaxxing” apps are increasingly appearing in mainstream platform environments. Marketed as self-improvement tools, they promise facial ratings, attractiveness scores and advice on how to “optimise” appearance. 1/5

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Digital Security Research Collaboratory Neu-Ulm @dsrc.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

Our colleagues Deinera Jechle and Dr. @afrenzel.bsky.social published a new paper on how phenomena often studied separately (e.g., cyberattacks, disinformation, propaganda) are frequently coordinated as part of information warfare (IW). 1/4

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Digital Security Research Collaboratory Neu-Ulm @dsrc.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Key insight: Community goals shape socialization. Incels prioritize protecting their emotional "safe space." Stormfront prioritizes recruitment for political goals. Same suspicion of outsiders-different strategies. 6/7

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Digital Security Research Collaboratory Neu-Ulm @dsrc.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

“Who controls social media, controls reality.” Our colleague Marten Risius gave a keynote at #DimensionDigitalisierung in Berlin on our Trust & Safety research at DSRC – from troll farms to AI-generated influencers with fabricated personas. 1/4 📸 Foto: Phil Dera / CC BY 4.0

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Digital Security Research Collaboratory Neu-Ulm @dsrc.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

In addition to his published paper "Mitigating the Effects of Harmful Social Media Content through Attitude Inoculation," our colleague @marcoduerr.bsky.social has shared a video presentation of his work. Watch the full presentation and read the paper here: aisel.aisnet.org/icis2025/is_...

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Digital Security Research Collaboratory Neu-Ulm @dsrc.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

SAFE-TD considers four possible outcomes: Success, Failure, Content Distortion, and Implicit Hate Transformation, where hate hides behind polite language. 6/7

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Digital Security Research Collaboratory Neu-Ulm @dsrc.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

To address this, we created SAFE-TD, a multi-agent LLM framework that simulates the perspectives of the sender and multiple targets to judge whether a rewritten post is truly safe. 5/7

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Digital Security Research Collaboratory Neu-Ulm @dsrc.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

The web interface (see diagram 👇) visualizes agent conversations, lets users create new agents, control workflows, and configure a shared rulebook. A Chrome plugin enables one-click inspection of online posts. 4/6

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Digital Security Research Collaboratory Neu-Ulm @dsrc.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Are you in an echo chamber or stuck in your own information cocoon? In a recent paper co-written by our @risius.bsky.social, they unpack the difference and why it matters for how we consume information. Read the thread for details. doi.org/10.1016/j.jsis.2025.101904 1/6

A Model of Echo Chambers and Information Cocoons. Taken from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsis.2025.101904

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