The Ebb and Flow of Controversial Debates on Social Networks

Summary:

In this paper, we present a longitudinal analysis of four popular controversial topics on Twitter, both in terms of network structure and content.

Our main findings are: (i) an increase in polarization linked to interest spikes, (ii) most of the interactions during events of interest happen within the different controversy sides, and replies do not cross sides very often, and (iii) Content becomes more uniform


Evaluation of the sides:

Retweets Keywords Hashtags Urls
Obamacare Top Retweets Top Keywords Top Hashtags Top Urls
Abortion Top Retweets Top Keywords Top Hashtags Top Urls
Guncontrol Top Retweets Top Keywords Top Hashtags Top Urls
Fracking Top Retweets Top Keywords Top Hashtags Top Urls

Code:

The code used in the paper is on Github.

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