scholarly journals An unsupervised method for social network spammer detection based on user information interests

2022 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Darshika Koggalahewa ◽  
Yue Xu ◽  
Ernest Foo

AbstractOnline Social Networks (OSNs) are a popular platform for communication and collaboration. Spammers are highly active in OSNs. Uncovering spammers has become one of the most challenging problems in OSNs. Classification-based supervised approaches are the most commonly used method for detecting spammers. Classification-based systems suffer from limitations of “data labelling”, “spam drift”, “imbalanced datasets” and “data fabrication”. These limitations effect the accuracy of a classifier’s detection. An unsupervised approach does not require labelled datasets. We aim to address the limitation of data labelling and spam drifting through an unsupervised approach.We present a pure unsupervised approach for spammer detection based on the peer acceptance of a user in a social network to distinguish spammers from genuine users. The peer acceptance of a user to another user is calculated based on common shared interests over multiple shared topics between the two users. The main contribution of this paper is the introduction of a pure unsupervised spammer detection approach based on users’ peer acceptance. Our approach does not require labelled training datasets. While it does not better the accuracy of supervised classification-based approaches, our approach has become a successful alternative for traditional classifiers for spam detection by achieving an accuracy of 96.9%.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darshika Koggalahewa ◽  
Yue Xu ◽  
Ernest Foo

Abstract Online Social Networks (OSNs) are a popular platform for communication and collaboration. Spammers are highly active in OSNs. Uncovering spammers has become one of the most challenging problems in OSNs. Classification-based supervised approaches are the most commonly used method for detecting spammers. The classification-based systems suffer from limitations of “data labelling”, “spam drift”, “imbalanced datasets” and “data fabrication”. These limitations effect the accuracy of a classifier’s detection. We present a pure unsupervised approach for spammer detection based on peer acceptance of a user in a social network to distinguish spammers from genuine users. The peer acceptance of a user to another user is calculated based on common shared interests over multiple shared topics between the two users. The main contribution of this paper is the introduction of a pure unsupervised spammer detection approach based on users’ peer acceptance. Our approach does not require labelled training datasets. While it does not better the accuracy of supervised classification-based approaches, our approach has become a successful alternative for traditional classifiers for spam detection by achieving an accuracy of 96.9%.


Author(s):  
Kathy J. Liszka ◽  
Chien-Chung Chan ◽  
Chandra Shekar

Microblogs are one of a growing group of social network tools. Twitter is, at present, one of the most popular forums for microblogging in online social networks, and the fastest growing. Fifty million messages flow through servers, computers, and cell phones on a wide variety of topics exchanged daily. With this considerable volume, Twitter is a natural and obvious target for spreading spam via the messages, called tweets. The challenge is how to determine if a tweet is a spam or not, and more specifically a special category advertising pharmaceutical products. The authors look at the essential characteristics of spam tweets and what makes microblogging spam unique from email or other types of spam. They review methods and tools currently available to identify general spam tweets. Finally, this work introduces a new methodology of applying text mining and data mining techniques to generate classifiers that can be used for pharmaceutical spam detection in the context of microblogging.


Data Mining ◽  
2013 ◽  
pp. 1407-1420
Author(s):  
Kathy J. Liszka ◽  
Chien-Chung Chan ◽  
Chandra Shekar

Microblogs are one of a growing group of social network tools. Twitter is, at present, one of the most popular forums for microblogging in online social networks, and the fastest growing. Fifty million messages flow through servers, computers, and cell phones on a wide variety of topics exchanged daily. With this considerable volume, Twitter is a natural and obvious target for spreading spam via the messages, called tweets. The challenge is how to determine if a tweet is a spam or not, and more specifically a special category advertising pharmaceutical products. The authors look at the essential characteristics of spam tweets and what makes microblogging spam unique from email or other types of spam. They review methods and tools currently available to identify general spam tweets. Finally, this work introduces a new methodology of applying text mining and data mining techniques to generate classifiers that can be used for pharmaceutical spam detection in the context of microblogging.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunyoung Park ◽  
Lasse Gerrits

AbstractAlthough migration has long been an imperative topic in social sciences, there are still needs of study on migrants’ unique and dynamic transnational identity, which heavily influences the social integration in the host society. In Online Social Network (OSN), where the contemporary migrants actively communicate and share their stories the most, different challenges against migrants’ belonging and identity and how they cope or reconcile may evidently exist. This paper aims to scrutinise how migrants are manifesting their belonging and identity via different technological types of online social networks, to understand the relations between online social networks and migrants’ multi-faceted transnational identity. The research introduces a comparative case study on an online social movement led by Koreans in Germany via their online communities, triggered by a German TV advertisement considered as stereotyping East Asians given by white supremacy’s point of view. Starting with virtual ethnography on three OSNs representing each of internet generations (Web 1.0 ~ Web 3.0), two-step Qualitative Data Analysis is carried out to examine how Korean migrants manifest their belonging and identity via their views on “who we are” and “who are others”. The analysis reveals how Korean migrants’ transnational identities differ by their expectation on the audience and the members in each online social network, which indicates that the distinctive features of the online platform may encourage or discourage them in shaping transnational identity as a group identity. The paper concludes with the two main emphases: first, current OSNs comprising different generational technologies play a significant role in understanding the migrants’ dynamic social values, and particularly, transnational identities. Second, the dynamics of migrants’ transnational identity engages diverse social and situational contexts. (keywords: transnational identity, migrants’ online social networks, stereotyping migrants, technological evolution of online social network).


2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (10) ◽  
pp. 1450056 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ke-Ke Shang ◽  
Wei-Sheng Yan ◽  
Xiao-Ke Xu

Previously many studies on online social networks simply analyze the static topology in which the friend relationship once established, then the links and nodes will not disappear, but this kind of static topology may not accurately reflect temporal interactions on online social services. In this study, we define four types of users and interactions in the interaction (dynamic) network. We found that active, disappeared, new and super nodes (users) have obviously different strength distribution properties and this result also can be revealed by the degree characteristics of the unweighted interaction and friendship (static) networks. However, the active, disappeared, new and super links (interactions) only can be reflected by the strength distribution in the weighted interaction network. This result indicates the limitation of the static topology data on analyzing social network evolutions. In addition, our study uncovers the approximately stable statistics for the dynamic social network in which there are a large variation for users and interaction intensity. Our findings not only verify the correctness of our definitions, but also helped to study the customer churn and evaluate the commercial value of valuable customers in online social networks.


2016 ◽  
Vol 42 (6) ◽  
pp. 536-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaista Wasiuzzaman ◽  
Siavash Edalat

Purpose – The vast amount of information available via online social networks (OSN) makes it a very good avenue for understanding human behavior. One of the human characteristics of interest to financial practitioners is an individual’s financial risk tolerance. The purpose of this paper is to look at the relationship between an individual’s OSN behavior and his/her financial risk tolerance. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses data collected from a sample of 220 university students and the backward variables selection ordinary least squares regression analysis technique to achieve its objective. Findings – The results of the study find that the frequency of logging on to social network sites indicates an individual who has higher financial risk tolerance. Additionally, the increasing use of social networks for social connection is found to be associated with lower financial risk tolerance. The results are mostly consistent when the sample is split based on prior financial knowledge. Originality/value – To the authors’ knowledge this is the first study which documents the possibility of understanding an individual’s financial risk tolerance via his/her social network activity. This provides investment/financial consultants with more avenues for gathering information in order to understand their current or potential clients hence providing better services.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S529-S529
Author(s):  
Daniele Zaccaria ◽  
Georgia Casanova ◽  
Antonio Guaita

Abstract In the last decades the study of older people and social networks has been at the core of gerontology research. The literature underlines the positive health effects of traditional and online social connections and also the social networks’s positive impact on cognitive performance, mental health and quality of life. Aging in a Networked Society is a randomized controlled study aimed at investigating causal impact of traditional face-to-face social networks and online social networks (e.g. Social Network Sites) on older people’ health, cognitive functions and well-being. A social experiment, based on a pre-existing longitudinal study (InveCe - Brain Aging in Abbiategrasso) has involved 180 older people born from 1935 to 1939 living in Abbiategrasso, a municipality near Milan. We analyse effects on health and well-being of smartphones and Facebook use (compared to engagement in a more traditional face-to-face activity), exploiting the research potential of past waves of InveCe study, which collected information concerning physical, cognitive and mental health using international validate scale, blood samples, genetic markers and information on social networks and socio-demographic characteristics of all participants. Results of statistical analysis show that poor social relations and high level of perceived loneliness (measured by Lubben Scale and UCLA Loneliness scale) affect negatively physical and mental outcomes. We also found that gender and marital status mediate the relationship between loneliness and mental wellbeing, while education has not significant effect. Moreover, trial results underline the causal impact of ICT use (smartphones, internet, social network sites) on self-perceived loneliness and cognitive and physical health.


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