Experimental Study on Detecting the Omen of Flaming Phenomena in Online Social Networks: Testing the Theory of the Oscillation Model for Online User Dynamics

摘要

The explosive user dynamics including the flaming phenomena evidenced in online social networks are seriously impacting not only online communities but also social activities in the real world. Therefore, it is necessary to build a fundamental theory that can prevent or mitigate the onset of said dynamics. In our previous study, we proposed the oscillation model on networks, an attractive candidate for the fundamental theory that can describe user dynamics. Despite being born from a purely theoretical background, the theory can unify the notions of different conventional node centralities based on a common framework and provides a natural extension of node centrality. In addition, the theory can describe the explosive user dynamics. However, theory confirmation tests on experimental data has not been fully conducted yet. The theory predicts that low frequency beats are a reliable omen of the onset of explosive user dynamics. In this paper, we test the theory of the oscillation model by analyzing the logs of a Japanese major bulletin board system; the presence of low frequency beats is reported.