1. $1.00 per RT #BostonMarathon
#PrayForBoston: Analyzing Fake
Content on Twitter
Sep
17,
2013
eCrime
Research
Summit
2013
Adi$
Gupta,
Hemank
Lamba,
Ponnurangam
Kumaraguru
(PK)
IIIT-­‐Delhi,
India
Unifying the
Global Response
to Cybercrime

2. 2
About
Precog@IIITD

3. Is
spreading
fake
content
an
eCrime?
FAKE
RUMORS
3
$

4. Boston
Blasts
• Twin
blasts
occurred
during
the
Boston
Marathon
– April
15th,
2013
at
18:50
GMT
• 3
people
were
killed
and
264
were
injured
• Suspects
Tamerlan
Tsarnaev
(deceased)
and
Dzhokhar
Tsarnaev
(in
custody)
• Huge
volume
of
content
posted
on
social
media
websites,
including
TwiVer
4

5. First
Image
on
TwiIer
(within
4
mins)
5

6. Sample
Fake
Tweets
6
>50,000
RTs
>30,000
RTs

7. Our
Contribu$ons
• We
characterized
the
spread
of
fake
content
on
TwiVer
using
temporal,
source
and
user
aVributes.
• We
applied
linear
regression
model
to
predict
how
viral
a
rumor
would
in
future
based
on
its
current
user
characterisYcs.
• We
analyzed
the
acYvity
and
interacYon
graphs
for
the
suspended
user
profiles
created
during
Boston
blasts.
7

8. Data
Descrip$on
Total tweets 7,888,374
Total users 3,677,531
Tweets with URLs 3,420,228
Tweets with Geo-tag 62,629
Retweets 4,464,201
Replies 260,627
Time of the blast Mon Apr 15 18:50 2013
Time of first tweet Mon Apr 15 18:53 2013
Time of first image Mon Apr 15 18:54 2013
Time of last tweet Thu Apr 25 01:23 2013
8

9. Data
Descrip$on
9

10. Data
Descrip$on
10

11. Methodology
11

12. Annota$ng
Viral
Tweets

13. Annota$ng
Viral
Tweets
Six
Rumors
130,690
ReTweets
128,019
Users
Affected

14. Temporal
PaIerns
14

15. Temporal
PaIerns
15
True
informaYon
propagaYon
begins
only
aer
eight
hours
of
the
blast

16. Predic$ng
Spread
of
Fake
Content
• Using
linear
regression
• Predict
how
viral
fake
informaYon
/
rumor
would
be
in
future
based
on
impact
of
users
tweeYng
the
rumor
• Impact
based
on:
– Social
reputaYon
– Global
engagement
– Topical
engagement
– Likability
– Credibility
16

17. Predic$ng
Spread
of
Fake
Content
17
Results
show
it
is
possible
to
predict
how
viral
a
rumor
would
become
in
future
based
on
aVributes
of
users
currently
propagaYng
the
rumor.

18. Suspended
Accounts
• 31,919
new
TwiVer
accounts
created
during
Boston
blasts,
that
tweeted
about
the
event
• Out
of
these
19%
[6,073
accounts]
were
deleted
or
suspended
by
TwiVer
18

19. Fake
/
Malicious
Accounts
19

20. Network
Analysis
of
Fake
Accounts
20
Self-­‐loops

21. Network
Analysis
of
Fake
Accounts
21
Closed
community

22. Network
Analysis
of
Fake
Accounts
22
Star
topology

23. Network
Analysis
of
Fake
Accounts
23
Single
links

24. Conclusions
&
Future
Work
• Based
on
the
insights
from
around
10
events
in
last
two
years
including:
– England
riots
– Libya
crisis
– Mumbai
triple
blasts
– Hurricane
Sandy
– Boston
Blasts
• We
are
building
Real-­‐Yme
soluYons
– Browser
plug-­‐in
– Monitoring
tools
24

25. Media
Coverage
25

26. Ques$ons
?
26

27. 27
Thank You!
aditig@iiitd.ac.in
pk@iiitd.ac.in
precog.iiitd.edu.in
Unifying the
Global Response
to Cybercrime

28. For any further information, please write to
pk@iiitd.ac.in
precog.iiitd.edu.in