On the Behaviour of Deviant Communities in Online Social Networks. (ISTI Grants for Young Mobility seminar series)

Day - Time: 26 October 2016, h.10:30
Place: Area della Ricerca CNR di Pisa - Room: C-29
Speakers
Referent

Andrea Esuli

Abstract

On-line social networks are complex ensembles of inter- linked communities that interact on different topics. Some communities are characterized by what are usually referred to as deviant behaviors, conducts that are commonly considered inappropriate with respect to the society’s norms or moral standards. Eating disorders, drug use, and adult con- tent consumption are just a few examples. We refer to such communities as deviant networks. It is commonly believed that such deviant networks are niche, isolated social groups, whose activity is well separated from the mainstream social-media life. According to this assumption, research studies have mostly considered them in isolation. In this work we focused on adult content consumption networks, which are present in many on-line social media and in the Web in general. We found that few small and densely connected communities are responsible for most of the content production. Differently from previous work, we studied how such communities interact with the whole social network. We aim at setting the basis to study deviant communities in context.