When Blockchain meets Online Social Networks

Guidi, Barbara

doi:10.1016/j.pmcj.2020.101131

Cited by 115 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…During the last ten years, blockchain technology has been applied to several research fields, including social media. A Blockchain Online Social Media (BOSM) [24] is a decentralised social media built upon a blockchain. The most important BOSMs proposals, usually heavily rely on the blockchain, and use it for many aspects, such as the implementation of the functionalities, and the storage of data.…”

Section: B Blockchain-based Social Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The main aim of all BOSMs is to overcome the problems of current OSNs, in particular Facebook. In [24], four common characteristics are identified: All current BOSMs proposals are based on these four common points. In detail, the Single-Point of Failure problem is faced by exploiting the decentralised architecture of the blockchain technology.…”

Section: B Blockchain-based Social Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Steem Blockchain: Mining the Inner Structure of the Graph

2020

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Since their introduction, Online Social Networks (OSNs) have transformed the way people interact with each other. Lately, a new trend is rising in the development of OSNs, fueled by an increasing interest of the blockchain technology and the benefits it can bring to the world of OSNs. Blockchain Online Social Media (BOSMs) are Social Media applications that are supported by the blockchain technology. Thanks to a blockchain, BOSMs either try to enforce the privacy of the users or try to redistribute with their users the economic wealth generated by the platform through a rewarding system. There are countless BOSMs available which incorporate a rewarding system. Among them, Steemit can be considered the most wellknown platform exceeding 1 million registered users. Steemit is supported by the blockchain Steem, which is a blockchain that natively supports the development of social applications by the usage of transactions that model social activity. Even if other important blockchains, such as Ethereum has been widely analysed, at the best of our knowledge, no study exists concerning the topology of the transactions graph of Steem. The main goal of this paper is to study the structure of the Steem transaction graph to understand its characteristics and unveil crucial knowledge concerning their users. More in detail, we build the Interactions Graph and, after its study, we evaluate three subgraphs that capture its social and monetary aspects. The degree distributions of the graphs follow a power-law. Additionally, we detect a substantial number of bots that offer paid services on the platform among the most active users. Lastly, the investigation of the four analysed graphs through a bow-tie structure, suggesting that half of the users have a passive social behaviour and that 80% of the users tend to accrue economic value.

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Section: B Blockchain-based Social Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: B Blockchain-based Social Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

Steem Blockchain: Mining the Inner Structure of the Graph

2020

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“…In this Orwellian scenario, Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) are giving rise to a new wave of disruptive innovations, among which the Blockchain is the most prominent and is emerging as the latest paradigm for the Internet of the future [1,36]. We are witnessing the sprouting of a large number of Blockchain-based Social Media platforms whose mission is to address the issues of current Online Social Networks [17].…”

Section: The Role Of Blockchainmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fixing Social Media with the Blockchain

Freni

Ferro

Ceci

2020

Proceedings of the 6th EAI International Conference on Smart Objects and Technologies for Social Good

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In today's social media context, many criticalities have emerged, particularly concerning the security of users' personal data and the unbalanced redistribution of the value generated. !is work, analyzing 40 emerging platforms, investigates how Blockchain technology is reshaping the social media scenario through transparency, value redistribution, ownership awareness, decentralization of data, and censorship resistance.

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“…During the last ten years, several DOSNs have been proposed [4,9,14,15], but they did not have a big impact on the daily life of people. Thanks to the blockchain technology and the idea of rewarding valuable content, a new generation of DOSNs have been proposed, principally based on blockchain [13]. There are a variety of online social networks, relying on blockchain technology and monetization to encourage their users to create and share their content.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The main question about Blockchain Social Media concerns the behaviour of users and how the rewarding strategy affects their social behaviour. The platforms are based on rewarding strategies and the principal motivation is that it could prevent fake news and censorship [13]. However, the real benefit is still unclear.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating Posts on the Steemit Blockchain

Kapanova

Guidi

Michienzi

et al. 2020

Proceedings of the 6th EAI International Conference on Smart Objects and Technologies for Social Good

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Online Social Networking platforms (OSNs) are part of the people's everyday life answering the deep-rooted need for communication among humans. During recent years, a new generation of social media based on blockchain became very popular, bringing the power of the technology to the service of social networks. Steemit is one such and employs the blockchain to implement a rewarding mechanism, adding a new, economic, layer to the social media service. The reward mechanism grants virtual tokens to the users capable of engaging other users on the platform, which can be either vested in the platform for increased influence or exchanged for fiat currency. The introduction of an economic layer on a social networking platform can seriously influence how people socialize. In this work, we tackle the problem of understanding how this new business model conditions the way people create contents. We performed term frequency and topic modelling analyses over the written contents published on the platforms between 2017 and 2019. This analysis lets us understand the most common topics of the contents that appear in the platform. While personal mundane information still appears, along with contents related to arts, food, travels, and sport, we also see emerging a very strong presence of contents about blockchain, cryptocurrency and, more specifically, on Steemit itself and its users. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Social network analysis; Social media; • Computing methodologies → Natural language processing.

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When Blockchain meets Online Social Networks

Cited by 115 publications

References 12 publications

Steem Blockchain: Mining the Inner Structure of the Graph

Steem Blockchain: Mining the Inner Structure of the Graph

Fixing Social Media with the Blockchain

Evaluating Posts on the Steemit Blockchain

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