Vladimir Barash will present the results of the recent study of mapping VK, the largest and most popular Russian social media (VK is short for its original name VKontakte, meaning InContact). As of August 2018, VK had at least 500 million accounts. Prior to mapping VK, Graphika had released reports on mapping Russian Twitter in 2012 (within the Russian Project of The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University) and 2018.
Vladimir Barash is the Science Director at Graphika (graphika.com). He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University, where he studied Information Science and wrote his thesis on the flow of rumors and virally marketed products through social networks. At Graphika, Vladimir oversees research into social network analysis and large-scale social phenomena, which powers Graphika’s cutting-edge analytic engine. Under Vladimir’s leadership, Graphika’s research wing successfully completed multiple research grants on the dynamics and causal mechanisms of collective behavior.