Twitter turns to machine learning expertise from Ticino

Twitter announced that it has acquired Fabula AI, a London-based spin-off of the University of Lugano, which uses machine learning to detect network manipulation.

According to a blog post written by Twitter CTO Parag Agrawal, Fabula AI’s algorithms can analyze very large and complex datasets describing relations and interactions, and it can extract signals in ways that traditional machine learning technologies are not capable of doing. Twitter intends to use this technology to stop spam and abuse in its social networks in an effort to create a healthier environment for users.

Fabula AI was founded in 2018 by Michael Bronstein, Damon Mannion, Federico Monti and Ernesto Schmitt. It is now led by co-founder and chief scientist Michael Bronstein and chief technologist Federico Monti, who began their collaboration together while at the University of Lugano.

“We are really excited to join the ML research team at Twitter, and work together to grow their team and capabilities. Specifically, we are looking forward to applying our graph deep learning techniques to improving the health of the conversation across the service,” said Bronstein.