The Web Centipede: Understanding How Web Communities Influence Each Other Through the Lens of Mainstream and Alternative News Sources
| Main Authors: | Zannettou Savvas, Caulfield Tristan, De Cristofaro Emiliano, Kourtellis Nicolas, Leontiadis Ilias, Sirivianos Michael, Stringhini Gianluca, Blackburn Jeremy |
|---|---|
| Format: | Proceeding Journal |
| Terbitan: |
, 2017
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| Online Access: |
https://zenodo.org/record/844699 |
Daftar Isi:
- As the number and diversity of news sources on the Web grows, so does the opportunity for alternative sources of information production. The emergence of mainstream social networks like Twitter and Facebook makes it easier for misleading, false, and agenda driven information to quickly and seamlessly spread online, deceiving people or influencing their opinions. Moreover, the increased engagement of tightly knit communities, such as Reddit and 4chan, compounds the problem as their users initiate and propagate alternative information not only within their own communities, but also to other communities and social media platforms across the Web. These platforms thus constitute an important piece of the modern information ecosystem which, alas, has not been studied as a whole. In this paper, we begin to fill this gap by studying mainstream and alternative news shared on Twitter, Reddit, and 4chan. By analyzing millions of posts around a variety of axes, we measure how mainstream and alternative news flow between these platforms. Our results indicate that alt-right communities within 4chan and Reddit can have a surprising level of influence on Twitter, providing evidence that "fringe" communities may often be succeeding in spreading these alternative news sources to mainstream social networks and the greater Web.