scholarly journals Evolution of bot and human behavior during elections

First Monday ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Luceri ◽  
Ashok Deb ◽  
Silvia Giordano ◽  
Emilio Ferrara
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Political Discussion ◽  
Online Activity ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
Social Media Service

Online social media have become one of the main communication platforms for political discussion. The online ecosystem, however, does not only include human users but has given a space to an increasing number of automated accounts, referred to as bots, extensively used to spread messages and manipulate the narratives others are exposed to. Although social media service providers put increasing efforts to protect their platforms, malicious bot accounts continuously evolve to escape detection. In this work, we monitored the activity of almost 245K accounts engaged in the Twitter political discussion during the last two U.S. voting events. We identified approximately 31K bots and characterized their activity in contrast with humans. We show that, in the 2018 midterms, bots changed the volume and the temporal dynamics of their online activity to better mimic humans and avoid detection. Our findings highlight the mutable nature of bots and illustrate the challenges to forecast their evolution.

scholarly journals Dari Selfish menuju Perilaku Produktif: Pergeseran Paradigma Pengguna Media Sosial

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-180
Author(s):  
Sherly Dwi Anggraeni
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Production Area ◽  
Social Media Service ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
New Jobs

This study aims to find the causes of changes in trends in the use of social media. Social media which is a means for interaction, communication, conveying information effectively and efficiently, saves complex problems. The use of social media then develops not only in the aspect of communication, but also in the production area. Some groups create new jobs on social media and use it as a means to market their products, goods and services. This proves that there has been a shift in the tendency to utilize social media. To find the causes of this change in trend, this study used a qualitative method using Thomas Kuhn's shifting paradigm approach. Through this approach, this study finds that shifting trends are influenced by the dynamics of deviations in using social media that often occur. This deviation gave rise to a crisis that resulted in a significant change in people's behavior in their social reality, so that to overcome this problem, social media users changed their activities in using media to be more productive. The crisis was not only responded to by users but also by social media service providers. In this case, social media service providers begin to improve their quality and features by narrowing the target, so that users can use them specifically according to their needs.Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menemukan penyebab adanya perubahan kecenderungan dalam penggunaan media sosial. Media sosial yang merupakan sarana untuk melakukan interaksi, komunikasi, menyampaikan informasi secara efektif dan efisien, menyimpan problem yang kompleks. Pemanfaatan penggunaan media sosial kemudian berkembang tidak hanya dalam aspek komunikasi, akan tetapi masuk dalam wilayah produksi. Beberapa kalangan menciptakan lapangan pekerjaan baru dalam media sosial dan menjadikannya sebagai sarana untuk memasarkan produk, barang dan jasanya. Hal demikian membuktikan bahwa telah terjadi pergeseran kecenderungan dalam memanfaatkan media sosial. Untuk menemukan penyebab perubahan kecenderungan tersebut, penelitian ini menggunakan metode kualitatif dengan menggunakan pendekatan shifting paradigm Thomas Kuhn. Melalui pendekatan tersebut, penelitian ini menemukan bahwa pergeseran kecenderungan dipengaruhi oleh dinamika penyimpangan dalam menggunakan media sosial yang sering terjadi. Penyimpangan ini memunculkan krisis yang berdampak pada perubahan perilaku yang signifikan masyarakat dalam realitas sosialnya, sehingga untuk mengatasi problem tersebut, para pengguna media sosial mengubah aktivitas mereka dalam memanfaatkan media menjadi lebih produktif. Krisis tersebut tidak hanya direpon oleh pengguna akan tetapi juga direspon oleh para penyedia layanan media sosial. Dalam hal ini, penyedia layanan media sosial mulai meningkatkan kualitas dan fiturnya dengan menyempitkan sasaran, sehingga dapat dengan spesifik dimanfaatkan oleh para pengguna sesuai dengan kebutuhan mereka.

scholarly journals Evolution of diversity and dominance of companies in online activity

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. e0249993
Author(s):  
Paul X. McCarthy ◽  
Xian Gong ◽  
Sina Eghbal ◽  
Daniel S. Falster ◽  
Marian-Andrei Rizoiu
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Preferential Attachment ◽  
Online Activity ◽  
Enterprise Value ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
Long Run ◽  
User Attention ◽  
Online Attention ◽  
The Web

Ever since the web began, the number of websites has been growing exponentially. These websites cover an ever-increasing range of online services that fill a variety of social and economic functions across a growing range of industries. Yet the networked nature of the web, combined with the economics of preferential attachment, increasing returns and global trade, suggest that over the long run a small number of competitive giants are likely to dominate each functional market segment, such as search, retail and social media. Here we perform a large scale longitudinal study to quantify the distribution of attention given in the online environment to competing organisations. In two large online social media datasets, containing more than 10 billion posts and spanning more than a decade, we tally the volume of external links posted towards the organisations’ main domain name as a proxy for the online attention they receive. We also use the Common Crawl dataset—which contains the linkage patterns between more than a billion different websites—to study the patterns of link concentration over the past three years across the entire web. Lastly, we showcase the linking between economic, financial and market data by exploring the relationships between online attention on social media and the growth in enterprise value in the electric carmaker Tesla. Our analysis shows that despite the fact that we observe consistent growth in all the macro indicators—the total amount of online attention, in the number of organisations with an online presence, and in the functions they perform—we also observe that a smaller number of organisations account for an ever-increasing proportion of total user attention, usually with one large player dominating each function. These results highlight how evolution of the online economy involves innovation, diversity, and then competitive dominance.

scholarly journals Gesamtrechtsnachfolge, Datenschutzrecht und Vertragsgestaltung

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Anton Cordes
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Data Protection ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
Applicable Law ◽  
Specific Differentiation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Service ◽  
Data Protection Law ◽  
Digital Assets

Against the backdrop of the Federal Court of Justice's seminal ruling on the inheritability of a Facebook user account, this study examines whether and to what extent generalizable parameters can be developed for handling the digital estate and in which constellations the applicable law requires case-specific differentiation. For the analysis of a user’s digital assets the study will examine in particular the data protection law of the GDPR as well as the contractual leeway of the social media service providers under German T&C law.

scholarly journals Computational Personality Assessment - An Overview and Perspective

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clemens Stachl ◽  
Ryan L. Boyd ◽  
Kai Tobias Horstmann ◽  
Poruz Khambatta ◽  
Sandra Matz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Personality Assessment ◽  
Mobile Sensing ◽  
Digital Data ◽  
Objective Measures ◽  
Digital Revolution ◽  
Personality Research ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
Practical Implications

Computational methods for the representation and analysis of data have drastically increased the objectivity, reliability, and the practical implications of research conducted throughout most scientific pursuits. Our rapidly-emerging potential to transform digital data into objective measures of human behavior, thoughts, and feelings has perfectly positioned personality science as a critical discipline that will benefit from today’s ongoing digital revolution. Here, we review and discuss some of the most promising approaches to computational personality assessment based on data from experience sampling, natural language, online social media, mobile sensing, and images. We present a concise overview of key findings, discuss the potential and promise ofcomputational personality assessment, and highlight important remaining questions in their development and application. We conclude with an optimistic outlook on how computational assessment could fuel the transition from personality research to personality science.

How does Weibo keep users hooked? A Weibo addictive behavior study based on netnography

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-195
Author(s):  
Heping He ◽  
Yanni Liu ◽  
Zhimin Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Addictive Behavior ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Marketing Ethics ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Social Media Service

Purpose With the rapid development of social media in the past few years, some dark aspects of usage have appeared, e.g., Weibo addiction. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to address the question of how Weibo keeps users hooked. Design/methodology/approach The study utilizes the netnography method to explore the symptoms of Weibo addiction and how it is formed. Findings First, some Weibo users have typical symptoms of addictive behavior, such as withdrawal, loss of control and general living problems; second, narcissism plays an important role in the process of Weibo addiction and has a stronger effect on content generation than content consumption; third, some users use Weibo as a means to alleviate anxiety, but they can then become more anxious owing to addiction; and fourth, the effect of comments has two sides – on the one hand, comments are one kind of feedback to posts, satisfying posters’ social needs, while on the other hand, a storytelling system consists of one post and its comments, upon which some Weibo users become more dependent. Research limitations/implications This research is only a preliminary, exploratory study. Therefore, care should be taken when interpreting these findings. Practical implications This study should help social media service providers and users to pay attention to the risk of social media addiction. Social media service providers should take social responsibility, design more user-oriented guidelines for marketing ethics and launch more responsible marketing activities. Users should enhance self-control and better balance social media use and offline real life. Originality/value Netnography has not been widely used as an addictive behavior research technique. This study is further bolstered because it has also noticed the difference of addiction mechanisms between addictive micro-bloggers and their followers.

Measuring personal and academic differences in students’ perceived social media credibility

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Iqra Bashir ◽  
Amara Malik ◽  
Khalid Mahmood
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
University Students ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Literacy Programs ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Media Credibility ◽  
Social Media Service ◽  
Programs Of Study

Purpose Social media is a popular source for information sharing in the contemporary world. Social media allow individuals to create, publish and diffuse contents directly. This openness has increased the risk of running into misinformation and raised questions about credibility of information shared. This study aims to examine the credibility of social media through the perceptions of university students. It also intends to see the difference in opinions based on their gender, academic disciplines and programs of study. Design/methodology/approach The study was based on a cross-sectional survey; a structured questionnaire was developed by consulting the relevant literature. Students were selected on convenient basis from all the programs of four universities of Faisalabad, Pakistan. Four hundred students were selected randomly from each university. Findings The findings indicated that students considered social media partially credible. Currency, community wellness, understandability and completeness of information were the highly rated facets, while factual and unbiased information was the low rated aspects. The perceived credibility of social media among the university students was the same across genders, programs of study and academic disciplines. Research limitations/implications The study may be helpful for social media service providers to address the concerns that students had in their perception regarding its credibility. Originality/value This study may likely benefit faculty members, researchers, librarians/information professionals and digital libraries to understand the students’ concerns about social media credibility from a developing country’s perspective. Such understanding will enable them to better address, educate and train university students at how to evaluate the quality of information on social media by offering information literacy programs. It is direly needed that university libraries should train the students to be proficient in assessing the quality of information by offering information or digital literacy programs. Moreover, the study may be helpful for social media service providers to address the concerns that students had in their perception regarding its credibility.

scholarly journals Analysis of Witnesses in the Steem Blockchain

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Guidi ◽  
Andrea Michienzi ◽  
Laura Ricci
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Mathematical Problem ◽  
Social Networking Site ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Service ◽  
New Generation

AbstractOnline Social Networking platforms (OSNs) have become part of people’s everyday life and their usage covers the deep-rooted need for communication among humans. During recent years, as people are questioning more and more OSN service providers, a new generation of proposals, based on blockchain became very popular thanks to the ethics adopted by these platforms. Steemit is the most important blockchain-based social networking site, which integrates, as main novelty an economic layer to the social media service. Steemit is implemented on top of Steem which, as in other blockchains, awards miners of the blocks with cryptocurrency. Steem miners, called witnesses, are not chosen based on the solution of a mathematical problem, as in Proof of Work based systems, but must be voted by other users. In this work, we decide to study the witnesses on Steem and their contribution to the social platform Steemit, and their social impact. We performed a set of analyses to shred light concerning their behaviour and to understand how they are socially perceived by other users. Analyses show an important social impact but, at the same time, some of them have a negative social impact. Their discussion is polarized towards content concerning Steem, Steemit, witnesses, and other platforms hosted on Steem.

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