Abstract: 

Online trust is becoming a central issue in modern society. Trusting fallacies can harm the wellbeing of individuals and society as a whole, especially during crises like COVID-19. During crises, the inconclusive, conflicting, and time-sensitive information created by varied sources and disseminated on diverse platforms can engender a sense of confusion and uncertainty. This uncertainty makes it difficult for people to determine what and whom they should trust. In this talk, I will share several empirical studies to answer: how people form and develop their online trust over time and how content producers (human & AI) approach “trustworthy” design. I will then discuss ongoing and future efforts in building tools to address issues of online trust, investigating the risks of AI to prevent “manipulating” trust, and developing theoretical frameworks to guide rigorous future research.