New paper alert! 🦋 How do we stop the spread of "dangerous" (aka violence-inciting) speech without shutting down disagreement? Our paper in ACM Transactions on Social Computing debuts a more precise framework for moderation.
blog.corifaklaris.com/2026/03/04/d...
#AcademicSky #DigitalSafety #HCI
I am sorry to miss #USEC2026 - I came down ill this week and had to cancel my travel. Please attend Sarah Tabassum's talk on her paper!
I am part of the search for the Lowe's endowed chair in CS at UNC Charlotte. We are working with a search firm. If you or a colleague is interested, check out their ad at www.academicsearch.org/open-searche...
Yikes: “Organic search fell by nearly half in the last three years, Murray wrote.”
AI chatbots are further eroding the publishing business model.
www.poynter.org/business-wor...
Excited to share a preview of research to bridge security tech and user emotion 🦋
📊 For #CHI2026: New 15-item scale for measuring Cybersecurity Anxiety (CybAS).
🎨 For #USEC2026: Participatory design of AI-enabled advice interfaces for international students.
blog.corifaklaris.com/2026/01/25/f...
Thank you!!
Finally summited my personal Mount Olympus -- One of my papers won a conditional acceptance to CHI, the premier venue for human-computer interaction 🥰
I'll share the preprint and research story once it's officially signed off. For now, I'm simply basking in this rarest of good news. #chi2026
Here's a handy tool for this era of GenAI Search Optimization (GEO) - a generator for your website's llms.txt file, to complement the robots.txt file you already have uploaded to root. llmrefs.com/tools/llms-t...
Screenshot of a pullout menu on Messages in iOS showing options such as Spam and Recently Deleted
Thank you Apple for adding more options and transparency tools to messaging. Our research in SMS phishing / smishing showed how helpful Android users found these affordances.
Next, tell us how you use these flagged possible scam messages to improve the filters. #hci #usablesecurity #mobileUX
The CLT Provisions concept for American Airlines sounded great until I realized there’s:
- no WiFi
- no lounge seating
-no BATHROOMS
- no refill for my water bottle
In other words, the main things I want at the lounge besides snack stuff.
Every time I write a grant proposal, I try to keep my expectations level: "Maybe we'll get some good feedback."
Then of course I get into the details, and my excitement grows. "This project HAS TO HAPPEN! I can't wait!"
Recipe for heartbreak when yield is <10% :-(
#academia
Governments are not be thinking through the implications of collecting allllllll this data, until someone sues them and forces them to.
neuburger.substack.com/p/cities-pan...
As an educator, I've moved from "How can I encourage AI?" to "How can they use it responsibly?"
Read my latest syllabus policy and my reflections here: blog.corifaklaris.com/2025/11/02/e...
Abusers often study and exploit weak points in the tech infrastructure that their targets use. (Though Freed et al. Pointed out they are “UI bound” - they won’t actually sabotage the hardware, just use the settings and possibilities built into interfaces.)
Great point - romance fraud has many I the same hallmarks of domestic abuse.
Woman speaking on a stage
Screen grabs from the scam victim’s mobile phone.
This year’s meeting of the big anti-mobile fraud group (M3AAWG) is right here in Charlotte. Lucky to snag a speaker spot and guest registration! Here, listening to a woman from the Netflix “Tinder Swindler” doc recount her ordeal.
Nice to have some good news for a change! www.charlotteobserver.com/news/busines...
Are you interested in - or even, teaching - Usable Security and Privacy? Check out my lectures on YouTube. I have been re-recording and posting these to a playlist. Subscribe! youtu.be/O4nz5cyGLtg?...
#usablesecurity #usableprivacy #cybersecurity #onlineprivacy
In Seattle for the 21st Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (#SOUPS2025)! I will moderate a session on Internet of Things / Smart Home papers and present a poster on user-tested ideas for trust indicators in mobile messaging. lnkd.in/eNYCeqnm
Dr. Cori Faklaris, left, and Kenta Sakamoto stand before his poster on analyzing US and NC survey data about AI perceptions.
We had a busy summer in the SPEX Lab! Thanks to UNC Charlotte Office of Undergrad Research and Center for STEM Education, the NSF REU program, and Army Educational Opportunities Program for sponsoring undergrad and HS students. www.facebook.com/share/p/175H...
New blog post on my busy 2025 - publishing on S&P concerns of educational migrants, smishing indicators, visualizing bias in image generation, and other topics. blog.corifaklaris.com/2025/06/02/f...
An Oral-B login screen.
I have been logged out of my toothbrush.
I ❤️this sent w/a SMS texted code: “If someone asks you for this code STOP; it's a SCAM. We will NEVER contact you for this code. Only enter it online to login.”
Gets your attention.
Clearly worded.
Informational.
Fits in the message/preview window.
💯
#smishing #phishing #cybersecurity
Lyft’s Priority Pickuo is a waste of money.
I tell people: Talk the AI through what you want done as if it is an intern. (Because it basically is.)
Racist and sexist roots in the cancellation of NSF grants under Trump:
Grants with female PIs canceled 2x more than men
Grants with Black PIs canceled 4x over White PIs
Grants with Hispanic PIs canceled 2x over White PIs
Grants with PIs with disabilities canceled 2x more than without
I went 2 years without seeing any LLM-hallucinated references in student work. Until this past week, when I or a TA have caught six fake papers via manual inspection. One was supposedly a paper of mine!
In very related news, newer AI models show high rates of error. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/t...
What I was afraid of on Friday, when I shared that warning to download and save everything from the NSF site ...
The mods of r/ChangeMyView shared the sub was the subject of a study to test the persuasiveness of LLMs & that they didn't consent. There’s a lot that went wrong, so here’s a 🧵 unpacking it, along with some ideas for how to do research with online communities ethically. tinyurl.com/59tpt988
Wow. Someone at the Univ. of Zurich decided to conduct an unauthorized experiment on the Change My View subreddit. The mods are understandably pissed off. www.reddit.com/r/changemyvi...
