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Dark retweets: investigating non-conventional retweeting patterns

Dark retweets: investigating non-conventional retweeting patterns
Dark retweets: investigating non-conventional retweeting patterns
Retweets are an important mechanism for recognising propagation of information on the Twitter social media platform. However, many retweets do not use the official retweet mechanism, or even community established conventions, and these "dark retweets" are not accounted for in many existing analysis. In this paper, a comprehensive matrix of tweet propagation is presented to show the different nuances of retweeting, based on seven characteristics: whether it is proprietary, the mechanism used, whether it is directed to followers or non-followers, whether it mentions other users, if it is explicitly propagating another tweet, if it links to an original tweet, and what is the audience it is pushed to. Based on this matrix and two assumptions of retweetability, the degrees of a retweet's "darkness" can be determined. This matrix was evaluated over 2.3 million tweets and it was found that dark retweets amounted to 12.86% (for search results less than 1500 tweets per URL) and 24.7% (for search results including more than 1500 tweets per URL) respectively. By extrapolating these results with those found in existing studies, potentially thousands of retweets may be hidden from existing studies on retweets.
Azman, Norhidayah
c4278d9d-e0e7-491c-a263-22064bee16ab
Millard, David E.
4f19bca5-80dc-4533-a101-89a5a0e3b372
Weal, Mark J.
e8fd30a6-c060-41c5-b388-ca52c81032a4
Azman, Norhidayah
c4278d9d-e0e7-491c-a263-22064bee16ab
Millard, David E.
4f19bca5-80dc-4533-a101-89a5a0e3b372
Weal, Mark J.
e8fd30a6-c060-41c5-b388-ca52c81032a4

Azman, Norhidayah, Millard, David E. and Weal, Mark J. (2012) Dark retweets: investigating non-conventional retweeting patterns. 4th International Conference on Social Informatics, , Lausanne, Switzerland. 05 - 07 Dec 2012. 14 pp .

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

Retweets are an important mechanism for recognising propagation of information on the Twitter social media platform. However, many retweets do not use the official retweet mechanism, or even community established conventions, and these "dark retweets" are not accounted for in many existing analysis. In this paper, a comprehensive matrix of tweet propagation is presented to show the different nuances of retweeting, based on seven characteristics: whether it is proprietary, the mechanism used, whether it is directed to followers or non-followers, whether it mentions other users, if it is explicitly propagating another tweet, if it links to an original tweet, and what is the audience it is pushed to. Based on this matrix and two assumptions of retweetability, the degrees of a retweet's "darkness" can be determined. This matrix was evaluated over 2.3 million tweets and it was found that dark retweets amounted to 12.86% (for search results less than 1500 tweets per URL) and 24.7% (for search results including more than 1500 tweets per URL) respectively. By extrapolating these results with those found in existing studies, potentially thousands of retweets may be hidden from existing studies on retweets.

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Published date: December 2012
Venue - Dates: 4th International Conference on Social Informatics, , Lausanne, Switzerland, 2012-12-05 - 2012-12-07
Organisations: Web & Internet Science

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 344491
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/344491
PURE UUID: 9283cc77-f4a5-41f3-9c15-e6d52771f901
ORCID for David E. Millard: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-7512-2710
ORCID for Mark J. Weal: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-6251-8786

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 23 Oct 2012 13:14
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 02:59

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Contributors

Author: Norhidayah Azman
Author: David E. Millard ORCID iD
Author: Mark J. Weal ORCID iD

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