Tuğrulcan Elmas

• Became a Program Co-Chair for ICWSM
• Awarded Generative AI Lab Seed Funding for Can LLMs Give Relationship Advice? with Yusuf Mücahit Çetinkaya — the first large-scale, theory-grounded dataset of online relationship narratives and AI-generated advice
• Book chapter published: An Optimistic Outlook on Teaching, Learning and Assessment for Coding With the Emergence of Generative AI
• Understanding Society with Big Data: Computational Social Science nominated for a University of Edinburgh Teaching Award

I'm an Assistant Professor in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, where I co-direct the Social Media Analysis and Support for Humanity (SMASH) group. My research is on AI & Social Media: how to detect fake / AI-generated media at scale, how LLMs claim epistemic authority and handle disagreements with users, and how multi-agent AI systems can automate scientific work and education. I am broadly interested in Natural Language Processing and Computational Social Science.

Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Scholar at Indiana University Bloomington's Observatory on Social Media (OSoMe). I received my Ph.D. from EPFL in 2022, and my B.S. from Bilkent University in 2017, with a major in Computer Science and a minor in Philosophy. I also spent a semester at the National University of Singapore.

I also explain AI to a general audience on my Turkish YouTube channel.

• Understanding Society with Big Data: Computational Social Science 2026– (Open Course Materials)
• Text Technologies in Data Science 2024–
• Evidence, Argument and Persuasion in a Digital Age 2025–2026
• Introduction to Object Oriented Programming 2025
• Distributed Information Systems, Applied Data Analysis, Introduction à la Programmation, EPFL, 2018–2021

• Yusuf Mücahit Çetinkaya (Postdoc)
• Riyadh Alnasser (PhDc)
• Onat Özdemir (PhDc)
• Sholpan Bolatzhanova (PhDc)
• Dhyey Mehta (Undergrad)
• William Whitfield (Undergrad)
• Yining Wang (External supervision)
• Negar Alizadeh (External supervision)

ChatGPT vs Teachers vs Students: Large-Scale Analysis of Generative AI Discourse in Education Communities on RedditPelin Yüce, Xiangruo Dai, Rebecca Owens, Tuğrulcan Elmas21st International Conference On Web And Social Media ICWSM 2027 (2027) · [arXiv]

When Does the Public Become Suspicious of Bots? Demand-Side Evidence from Botometer Query LogsTuğrulcan Elmas (2026) · [arXiv]

How AI Models Manage Epistemic Authority: A Taxonomy and Comparative Analysis of Responses to User DisagreementRiyadh Alnasser, Yusuf Mücahit Çetinkaya, Sumin Zhao, Tuğrulcan ElmasConference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP 2026) (2026) · [arXiv]

Credible, Not Always Correct: How Reddit Users Verify AI-Generated Legal AdviceRebecca Owens, Yusuf Mücahit Çetinkaya, Stergios Aidinlis, Dhyey Mehta, Tuğrulcan Elmas (2026) · [arXiv]

Online Safety Regulation Increases Attention to VPNs: Privacy Implications of the UK Online Safety ActDhyey Mehta, Eldar Jalilzade, Maksim Kalameyets, Rebecca Owens, Marc Juarez, Stergios Aidinlis, Lei Shi, Tuğrulcan ElmasProceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PoPETs 2026) (2026) · [arXiv]

TRACE-Inset: Unified Whole-Image and Partial-Match Image Retrieval with Vision-Language EmbeddingsOnat Özdemir, Yusuf Mücahit Çetinkaya, Tuğrulcan Elmas (2026)

An Optimistic Outlook on Teaching, Learning and Assessment for Coding With the Emergence of Generative AISteven Watterson, Laila Dabab Nahas, Tuğrulcan Elmas, Hebatallah Shoukry, Ozan EvkayaIn Teaching Programming Across Disciplines (2026) · [Chapter]

Evaluating Image Forgery Detection and Propaganda in Manipulated Images of the Russian Trolls CampaignBasem Mohammed, Yusuf Mücahit Çetinkaya, Tuğrulcan ElmasIEEE Internet Computing 2026 (2026) · [PDF]

Humans Cannot Detect AI-Generated Media But Communities May — For Now: Collaborative AI Detection in r/RealOrAI on RedditTuğrulcan Elmas (2026) · [arXiv]

Israel-Hamas War on X: A Case Study of Coordinated Campaigns and Information IntegrityTuğrulcan Elmas, Filipi Nascimento Silva, Manita Pote, Priyanka Dey, Keng-Chi Chang, Jinyi Ye, Luca Luceri, Cody Buntain, Emilio Ferrara, Alessandro Flammini, Fil Menczer (2026) · [arXiv]

Gendered Communication Patterns of Political Elites on Truth SocialTom Bidewell, Artemis Deligianni, Tuğrulcan Elmas, Clare Llewellyn, Bjorn Ross18th ACM Web Science Conference WebSci 2026 (2026) · [arXiv]

Grievance Politics vs. Policy Debates: A Cross-Platform Analysis of Conservative Discourse on Truth Social and RedditYining Wang, Alhasan Abdellatif, Artemis Deligianni, Hannah Hok, Yusuf Mücahit Çetinkaya, Tuğrulcan Elmas20th International Conference On Web And Social Media ICWSM 2026 (2026) · [arXiv]

State & Geopolitical Censorship on Twitter (X): Detection & Impact Analysis of Withheld ContentYusuf Mücahit Çetinkaya, Tuğrulcan ElmasThe Conference on Information and Knowledge Management CIKM 2025 (2025) · [arXiv]

Density-aware Walks for Coordinated Campaign DetectionAtul Anand Gopalakrishnan, Jakir Hossain, Tuğrulcan Elmas, Ahmet Erdem SariyuceEuropean Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases ECML PKDD 2025 (2025) · [arXiv]

Cross-Partisan Interactions on Social MediaYusuf Mücahit Çetinkaya, Vahid Ghafouri, Jose Such, Guillermo Suarez Tangil, Tuğrulcan Elmas19th International Conference On Web And Social Media ICWSM 2025 (2025) · [arXiv]

Large Engagement Networks for Classifying Coordinated Campaigns and Organic Twitter TrendsAtul Anand Gopalakrishnan, Jakir Hossain, Tuğrulcan Elmas, Ahmet Erdem Sariyuce19th International Conference On Web And Social Media ICWSM 2025 (2025) · [arXiv]

Coordinated Reply Attacks in Influence Operations: Characterization and DetectionManita Pote, Tuğrulcan Elmas, Alessandro Flammini, Fil Menczer19th International Conference On Web And Social Media ICWSM 2025 (2025) · [arXiv]

Toxic Synergy Between Hate Speech and Fake News ExposureMunjung Kim, Tuğrulcan Elmas, Filippo MenczerInternational Workshop on Cyber Social Threats CySoc 2024 (colocated with ICWSM 2024) (2024) · [arXiv]

#TeamFollowBack - Detection and Analysis of Follow Back AccountsTuğrulcan Elmas, Mathis Randl, Youssef Attia18th International Conference On Web And Social Media ICWSM 2024 (2024) · [arXiv]

Shorts vs. Regular Videos on YouTube: A Comparative Analysis of User Engagement and Content Creation TrendsCaroline Violot, Tuğrulcan Elmas, Igor Bilogrevic, Mathias Humbert16th ACM Web Science Conference WebSci 2024 (2024) · [arXiv]

Measuring and Detecting Virality on Social Media: The Case of Twitter's Viral Tweets TopicTuğrulcan Elmas, Selim Stephane, Célia HoussiauxACM Web Conference 2023 WebConf 2023 (2023) · [arXiv] · [Data]

Analyzing Activity and Suspension Patterns of Twitter Bots Attacking Turkish Twitter Trends by a Longitudinal DatasetTuğrulcan ElmasInternational Workshop on Cyber Social Threats CySoc 2023 (colocated with WebConf 2023) (2023) · [arXiv] · [Data]

The Impact of Data Persistence Bias on Social Media StudiesTuğrulcan Elmas15th ACM Web Science Conference WebSci 2023 (2023) · [arXiv] · [Data]

Misleading Repurposing on TwitterTuğrulcan Elmas, Rebekah Overdorf, Karl Aberer17th International Conference On Web And Social Media ICWSM 2023 (2023) · [arXiv]

Opinion Mining from YouTube Captions Using ChatGPT: A Case Study of Street Interviews Polling the 2023 Turkish Electionsİlker Gül, Tuğrulcan Elmas (2023) · [arXiv]

The Role of Compromised Accounts in Social Media ManipulationTuğrulcan Elmas (2022) · [PDF]

Characterizing Retweet Bots: The Case of Black Market AccountsTuğrulcan Elmas, Rebekah Overdorf, Karl Aberer16th International Conference On Web And Social Media ICWSM 2022 (2022) · [arXiv] · [Data]

WayPop Machine: A Wayback Machine to Investigate Popularity and Root Out TrollsTuğrulcan Elmas, Thomas Romain Ibanez, Alexandre Hutter, Rebekah Overdorf, Karl AbererInternational Symposium on Foundations of Open Source Intelligence and Security Informatics FOSINT-SI 2022 (colocated with ASONAM 2022) (2022)

Ephemeral Astroturfing Attacks: The Case of Fake Twitter TrendsTuğrulcan Elmas, Rebekah Overdorf, Ahmed Furkan Özkalay, Karl Aberer2021 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Euro S&P 2021 (2021) · [arXiv] · [Code]

A Dataset of State-Censored TweetsTuğrulcan Elmas, Rebekah Overdorf, Karl Aberer15th International Conference On Web And Social Media ICWSM 2021 (2021) · [arXiv] · [Data]

Tactical Reframing of Disinformation Campaigns Against the Istanbul ConventionTuğrulcan Elmas, Rebekah Overdorf, Karl AbererData for the Wellbeing of Most Vulnerable colocated with ICWSM 2021 (2021) · [arXiv]

Can Celebrities Burst Your BubbleTuğrulcan Elmas, Kristina Hardi, Rebekah Overdorf, Karl AbererInnovative Ideas in Data Science (colocated with WebConf 2020) (2020) · [arXiv]

▼ Show all 32 papers

• Invited teaching seminar, Johns Hopkins SAIS — Conflicts and Cultures in Contemporary Turkey (Lisel Hintz)
• Panelist, “Unmasking the Digital Deception: Defending Against DeepFakes and Disinformation Attacks” — Applied Machine Learning Days (AMLD) 2025, EPFL
• Panelist, AIM Lab Roundtable Discussion
• Invited speaker, Bilkent AI Tech Talks — Artificial Intelligence and Social Media
• Speaker & panelist, The Scotsman Data Conference 2024: Data, Deepfakes and Democracy, Edinburgh
• Speaker & panelist, HBKU Middle East Conference 2024: Gender, Technology, and Digital Cultures in the Middle East, Doha

• Advise BBC fact-checkers on verifying suspected AI-generated images and video
• Program Co-Chair, ICWSM 2027
• Generative AI Lab Fellow, University of Edinburgh
• Organiser, SICSS Edinburgh 2025
• University of Edinburgh committees: Ethics, Teaching, Board of Studies
• PC member: WebSci, ICWSM, CySoc
• Conference reviewer: Euro S&P 2021, EDBT 2021, ICDE 2020, IEEE CIC 2019, CIKM 2019, WISE 2018, IEEE Big Data 2018
• Journal reviewer: Turkish J. of EE & CS, Online Social Networks and Media, EPJ Data Science, PeerJ

• Prompted the short film This AI Makes You Think 2X Faster
• Interviewed by Ali Tarakçı
• Interviewed by Cüneyt Özdemir
• Guest at Dijital Hayat / TRT Radyo
• Interviews as president of Turquia1912
• Directed the short film Lemongrass

I build small browser games on the side. Click Play and the game opens right here in the frame below.

Congress of Berlin, 1878
Draw the fairest Balkan borders of 1878, then watch history unfold.
▶ Play

Cimbom Striker
Arcade football, now with boss music.
▶ Play

How can I work with you?

I am always looking for curious and motivated people to join our research at the intersection of computational social science, NLP, and online safety. If our work resonates with you, please reach out.

PhD
I recruit PhD students through the CDT in Responsible Natural Language Processing at the University of Edinburgh. The programme offers fully-funded four-year studentships with a strong cohort and training environment. If you are interested in pursuing a PhD with me, please apply through the CDT and mention my name in your application.

Research Assistants
I occasionally have opportunities for masters and undergraduate research assistantships. If you are a University of Edinburgh student interested in getting hands-on research experience, feel free to contact me with a brief note about your background and interests.

I welcome self-sponsored in-person visitor students to the University of Edinburgh and our lab. We do not have funded internships for non University of Edinburgh students due to employment laws. We do not accommodate online internships.

Write to me at tugrulcanelmas@gmail.com.

• Deanonymized author of the popular Turkish blog azimliyazar.blogspot.com (4M+ views)
• President, Switzerland Turkish Student Association (2019–2021)
• Bilkent University Ultimate Frisbee (2015–2017), Fencing (2017) and Orienteering (2015) teams