1. A survey of Facebook as a research site:
From personal networks to the world's
social graph and (something) in between
Bernie Hogan [ @blurky ]
Research Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute
Summer Social Webshop 2012
August 21, 2012

7. Identifying this data is
completely tractable
• Backstrom, L., Dwork, C., and Kleinberg, J. (2007).
Wherefore art thou r3579x? : anonymized social
networks, hidden patterns, and structural
steganography. In Proceedings of the 16th international
conference on World Wide Web, pages 181–190. ACM New
York, NY, USA.
• Direct attack needs ~ sqrt(log(n)) nodes.
• Narayanan, A. and Shmatikov,V. (2009). De-anonymizing
social networks. Forthcoming: IEEE C&S.
• Starting with even less and matching to existing network
can get over 90% of the network accurately.

13. One does not simply walk into Facebook data

14. Testing Tie Strength and Trace Data
(Beyond Position)
Gilbert and Karahalios (2009)

18. NameGenWeb

22. Source: http://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.asp

23. Potential Measures of
Social Capital
A. Size B. Clustering
C. Average Degree

24. A. Size
B. Clustering
C. Average Degree

25. But network structure isn’t really social capital, is it?
$ $
$ $
$
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$ Me $
$ $
$ $ $

26. Williams Bridging Scale
(Adapted by Ellison et al., 2011)

27. Williams Bonding Scale
(Adapted by Ellison et al., 2011)
•There are several people in my Facebook network I trust to help solve my problems.
•There is someone in my Facebook network I can turn to for advice about making very
important decisions.
•There is no one in my Facebook network that I feel comfortable talking to about intimate
personal problems. (reversed)
•When I feel lonely, there are several people in my Facebook network I can talk to.
•If I needed an emergency loan of $500, I know someone in my Facebook network I can
turn to.
•The people I interact with in my Facebook network would put their reputation on the line
for me.
•The people I interact with in my Facebook network would be good job references for me.
•The people I interact with in my Facebook network would share their last dollar with me.
•I do not know people in my Facebook network well enough to get them to do anything
important. (reversed)

28. Signals of Relational
Investment.
(α = .90)
Information-seeking
Behavior
(α = .87)

30. Using Network Measures as
Independent Variables
1. Community Detection.
- Using the “Louvain method” to count the
number of modularity maximized cohesive
subgroups
2. Transitivity.
- Using classic triangles over 3*2-paths
method to assess global transitive ties
3. Giant Component.
- Average network size: 217
- Median 89 percent of network members in
the largest component, Median 98 percent in
LC + isolates and dyads.

31. 5 4
FB_BondingSC_Scale
3
Network
Bridge
2
1
.2 .4 .6 .8 1
Clust_Coeff
Low High
transitivity transitivity

32. Summarizing the Good
News from Structure
• People feel differently about Facebook in relation
to the connectivity of their network structure.
• Not only is active Facebook use associated with
social capital, but so is having a cohesive network
with global closure, independent of behavior.
• Bridging capital appears to be related to subgroups
within the giant component, but more strongly to
active engagement with the network.

33. Having two identities for
yourself is an example of a
lack of integrity
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/briansolis/2696198607/

34. Modern Life Facebook
Hometown
Family
Neighbors
Friends
Sports Friends of
Friends
Co-
Everyone
workers

35. Not a homogenous
group
Friends of
Friends
Everyone

36. “Bolivar”

38. Oxford Friends
Ex-students
Hobby group
Anonymous Friends
Foreign friends

40. “I remember once one of my friends from University posted a link
on my wall. They know I'm into sexual politics and gender and stuff
like that – he knew I was doing a module on it. So yeah, this link
was to a woman’s blog who was some kind of online sex worker
who specialised in weird and creepy fetish porn [laughter]. I mean,
it was all reasonably tasteful because it was her blog not a porn
site, but, you know, there was nudity there and some pretty
hardcore feminist statements about sex and whatever.
So yeah, I sort of fell out with them a bit over it because….though
they probably weren’t thinking about it, I’ve got very religious family
back home in Gaza who look at my profile all the time. If, you
know, one of my young cousins had clicked on that [laughter] they
would have just thought it was porn because they don’t
understand. They wouldn’t get it. I’d have been in a lot of trouble.
So, yeah, I was pretty mad. I had to delete it.” (A19)

42. The stageplay
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/teagrrl/17574687/

43. Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marialgilbert/3318487066

44. The Lowest Common
Denominator in Action

46. Google and Facebook would have you
believe that you’re a mirror, but we’re
actually more like diamonds...Look
from a different angle, and you see
something completely different.

47. Special Thanks
• Toronto: Barry Wellman, Juan Antonio Carrasco (and SSHRC)
• MSU: Brandon Brooks, Nicole Ellison, Cliff Lampe and Jessica
Vitek (and the NSF)
• Oxford: Joshua Melville (and John Fell Fund)
• Microsoft: danah boyd, Jeff Potter
• Social Media Research Foundation: Marc A. Smith, Arber Ceni

48. Thank You
Bernie Hogan
Research Fellow, OII
http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/hogan
Twitter: @blurky
bernie.hogan@oii.ox.ac.uk
Hogan, Bernie. 2012, forthcoming. “Pseudonyms and the Rise
of the Real Name Web”. Hartley, J., Burges, J., Bruns, A.,
Blackwell Companion to New Media Dynamics.
Hogan, Bernie. 2010. “The Presentation of Self in the Age of
Social Media: Distinguishing Performances and Exhibitions
Online.” Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 30(6): 377-386.
Hogan, Bernie. 2010. “Visualizing and Interpreting Facebook
Networks.” In Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL,
eds. D Hansen, Marc A Smith, and Ben Shneiderman.
Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann, p. 165-180.
Brooks, Brandon, Howard T. Welser, Bernie Hogan & Scott
titsworth. 2011. “Socioeconomic Status Updates: Family SES
and emergent social capital in college student Facebook
networks.” Information, Communication & Society
(OnlineFirst): 1-21.