WeChat is a mobile messaging application that has 549 million active users as of Q1 2015, and “WeChat Moments” (WM) serves its social-networking function that allows users to post share links of web pages. WM differs from the other social networks as it imposes many restrictions on the information diffusion process to mitigate the information overload. In this paper, we conduct a measurement study on information diffusion in the WM network by crawling and analyzing the spreading statistics of more than 160,000 pages that involve approximately 40 million users. Specifically, we identify the relationship of the number of posted pages and the number of views, the diffusion path length, the similarity and distribution of users' locations as well as their connections with the GDP of the users' province. For each individual WM page, we measure its temporal characteristics (e.g., the life time, the popularity within a time period); for each individual user, we evaluate how many of, or how likely, one's friends will view his posted pages. Our results will help the business to decide when and how to release the marketing pages over WM for better publicity.
Moms are one of the fastest growing demographics online. While much is known about where they spend their time, little is known about how they spend it. Using a dataset of over 51 million posts and comments from the website YouBeMom.com, this paper explores what kinds of topics moms talk about when they are not constrained by norms and expectations of face-to-face culture. Results show that almost 5 of posts are about dh, or “dear husband,” but these posts tend to express more negative emotion than other posts. The average post is only 124 characters long and family and daily life are common categories of posting. This suggests that YouBeMom is used as a fast-paced social outlet that may not be available to moms in other parts of their lives. This work concludes with a discussion of anonymity and disinhibition and puts forth a new provocation that moms, too, spend time online “for the lulz.” This paper provides results from a pilot study of Yik Yak at one STEM-oriented research university in the Midwest. This paper reports on two aspects of the anonymous messaging app, Yik Yak: location-dependence and purposes for writing. Suggestions for improved research protocols are included. Social interactions and interpersonal communication has undergone significant changes in recent years. Increasing awareness of privacy issues and events such as the Snowden disclosures have led to the rapid growth of a new generation of anonymous social networks and messaging applications. By removing traditional concepts of strong identities and social links, these services encourage communication between strangers, and allow users to express themselves without fear of bullying or ret aliation. Despite millions of users and billions of monthly page views, there is little empirical analysis of how services like Whisper have changed the shape and content of social interactions. In this paper, we present results of the first large-scale empirical study of an anonymous social network, using a complete 3-month trace of the Whisper network covering 24 million whispers written by more than 1 million unique users. We seek to understand how anonymity and the lack of social links affect user behavior. We analyze Whisper from a number of perspectives, including the structure of user interactions in the absence of persistent social links, user engagement and network stickiness over time, and content moderation in a network with minimal user accountability. Finally, we identify and test an attack that exposes Whisper users to detailed location tracking. We have notified Whisper and they have taken steps to address the problem.