Exploring machine learning techniques for fake profile detection in online social networks

The online social network is the largest network, more than 4 billion users use social media and with its rapid growth, the risk of maintaining the integrity of data has tremendously increased. There are several kinds of security challenges in online social networks (OSNs). Many abominable behaviors try to hack social sites and misuse the data available on these sites. Therefore, protection against such behaviors has become an essential requirement. Though there are many types of security threats in online social networks but, one of the significant threats is the fake profile. Fake profiles are created intentionally with certain motives, and such profiles may be targeted to steal or acquire sensitive information and/or spread rumors on online social networks with specific motives. Fake profiles are primarily used to steal or extract information by means of friendly interaction online and/or misusing online data available on social sites. Thus, fake profile detection in social media networks is attracting the attention of researchers. This paper aims to discuss various machine learning (ML) methods used by researchers for fake profile detection to explore the further possibility of improvising the machine learning models for speedy results

An analysis of fake social media engagement services

Fake engagement services allow users of online social media and other web platforms to illegitimately increase their online reach and boost their perceived popularity. Driven by socio-economic and even political motivations, the demand for fake engagement services has increased in the last years, which has incentivized the rise of a vast underground market and support infrastructure. Prior research in this area has been limited to the study of the infrastructure used to provide these services (e.g., botnets) and to the development of algorithms to detect and remove fake activity in online targeted platforms. Yet, the platforms in which these services are sold (known as panels) and the underground markets offering these services have not received much research attention. To fill this knowledge gap, this paper studies Social Media Management (SMM) panels, i.e., reselling platforms¿often found in underground forums¿in which a large variety of fake engagement services are offered. By daily crawling 86 representative SMM panels for 4 months, we harvest a dataset with 2.8 M forum entries grouped into 61k different services. This dataset allows us to build a detailed catalog of the services for sale, the platforms they target, and to derive new insights on fake social engagement services and its market. We then perform an economic analysis of fake engagement services and their trading activities by automatically analyzing 7k threads in underground forums. Our analysis reveals a broad range of offered services and levels of customization, where buyers can acquire fake engagement services by selecting features such as the quality of the service, the speed of delivery, the country of origin, and even personal attributes of the fake account (e.g., gender). The price analysis also yields interesting empirical results, showing significant disparities between prices of the same product across different markets. These observations suggest that the market is still undeveloped and sellers do not know the real market value of the services that they offer, leading them to underprice or overprice their services.This work was supported by the EU Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under Grant agreement no. 101021377 (TRUST aWARE ); the Spanish grants ODIO (PID2019-111429RB-C21 and PID2019-111429RB-C22), and the Region of Madrid grant CYNAMON-CM (P2018/TCS-4566), co-financed by European Structural Funds ESF and FEDER

Computational propaganda : exploring mitigation strategies for political parties in online brand contexts

Abstract : This research delves into the phenomenon of computational propaganda on social media, and draws on social media specialists from some of South Africa’s best performing brands to explore potential strategies political parties can employ to mitigate against crises that occur as a result of computational propaganda. This research is of importance given that South Africa is entering its first ever National Elections since the identification of computational propaganda as a threat to electoral processes. To date, there is no research that explores this within the South African context. The research entailed semi-structured interviews with eight social media managers, selected using the purposive non-probability sampling method. In addition to this, the research interviewed a communications head from South Africa’s largest political party in order to assess what strategies are already in place. These two sets of data were consolidated resulting in four potential strategies to mitigate against the risk of computational propaganda. The four potential mitigation strategies are grouped into two approaches, the first approach relates to preventative measures political parties can take, namely protecting brand identity and aligning communications. The second approach related to defensive measures political party brands could take in the event of a computational propaganda event, namely online reputation management and integration of communication. The research further uncovered contextual considerations political party brands must take into account before employing strategies to mitigate against crises that arise as a result of computational propaganda.M.A. (Communication Studies

Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones but Words Will Never Hurt Me...Until I See Them: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Trolls in Relation to the Gricean Maxims and (IM)Polite Virtual Speech Acts

The troll is one of the most obtrusive and disruptive bad actors on the internet. Unlike other bad actors, the troll interacts on a more personal and intimate level with other internet users. Social media platforms, online communities, comment boards, and chatroom forums provide them with this opportunity. What distinguishes these social provocateurs from other bad actors are their virtual speech acts and online behaviors. These acts aim to incite anger, shame, or frustration in others through the weaponization of words, phrases, and other rhetoric. Online trolls come in all forms and use various speech tactics to insult and demean their target audiences. The goal of this research is to investigate trolls\u27 virtual speech acts and the impact of troll-like behaviors on online communities. Using Gricean maxims and politeness theory, this study seeks to identify common vernacular, word usage, and other language behaviors that trolls use to divert the conversation, insult others, and possibly affect fellow internet users’ mental health and well-being

Mother of the house of no shame: The queer economy of Rupaul’s Drag Race

In this dissertation, I consider the television show RuPaul’s Drag Race and the vast web of digital and broadcast media productions it has spawned, as a means to explore the changing cultural, technological, and economic conditions that have allowed for the emergence of a widespread queer media economy in which it is currently positioned as a central touchstone and engine of production and productivity. I seek to understand the history and evolution of the changing economics and production practices of the reality television genre that led to the emergence of (and have been deployed, tweaked, and recirculated by) the semi-satirical Drag Race; to better understand its position, as a “broadcast” cable television show, in a wider network of “new” and “spreadable” social media enterprises flowing into and out of it; to analyze the artistic, aesthetic, ethical and ascetic technologies of the self practiced by the contestants on the show, alongside a genealogical account of their origins in queer spaces and subcultures; and to explore the show’s position in a wider television landscape, asking how it is related to other programs of the current conjuncture, its technologization and commodification of a queer mode of belonging, and its relationships to virtual and material queer spaces as a globalized cultural technology. In this project, I hope to explicate a governmentality by which we learn to govern ourselves as sexual and gendered subjects, and which circuitously feeds into and off of the culture industries and post-industrial “creative” economic production more generally. By thinking through and theorizing a political economy of drag through its interconnections with the popular media that circulates particular variations of it, I am seeking to explore the ways that the technologies of the self - the means by which we learn to fashion and govern ourselves - are an essential part of a genealogy of a mode of production that defines the cultural, political, economic, and personal practices that define our current conjuncture

Trans Tessituras: Confounding, Unbearable, and Black Transgender Voices in Luso-Afro-Brazilian Popular Music

This dissertation shows how gay, trans and queer performers in Brazil, Portugal, and Angola, working in traditionally misogynistic, homo- and transphobic popular music genres, have successfully claimed and refigured those genres and repertoires through iterations of transgender voices and bodies. I show how Pabllo Vittar, Fado Bicha and Titica refigure normative gendered conventions of sex and song through trans formations of popular music genres. I locate them within a genealogy of queer Luso-Afro-Brazilian popular music practices and performances that deploy trans formations of voice, body, and repertoire. I trace a genealogy of transgender voice in Brazilian popular music to Ney Matogrosso’s 1975 debut release, through which I reveal a cacophony of queer, indigenous and Afro-Brazilian intersections; and in Portuguese popular music to António Variações 1982 debut, through whom I trace a fado genealogy of Afro-diasporic cultural practices, gender transgression and sexual deviance. Finally, I locate Titica’s music in practices of the black queer diaspora as a refiguring of Angolan postcolonial aesthetics. Together, these artists and their music offer a queer Luso-Afro-Brazilian diaspora in spectacular popular music formations that transit beside and beyond the Portuguese-speaking world, unbound by it, and refiguring hegemonic Luso-Afro-Brazilian discourses of gender, sexuality, race and nation

Digital work in the planetary market

Many of the world’s most valuable companies rely on planetary networks of digital work that underpin their products and services. This important book examines implications for both work and workers when jobs are commodified and traded beyond local labor markets. For instance, Amazon’s contractors in Costa Rica, India, and Romania are paid to structure, annotate, and organize conversations captured by ‘Alexa’ to train Amazon’s speech recognition systems. Findings show that despite its planetary connections, labor remains geographically “sticky” and embedded in distinct contexts. The research emphasizes the globe-spanning nature of contemporary networks without resorting to an understanding of “the global” as a place beyond space.Aujourd’hui, de nombreux emplois peuvent être exercés depuis n’importe où. La technologie numérique et la connectivité Internet généralisée permettent à presque n’importe qui, n’importe où, de se connecter à n’importe qui d’autre pour communiquer et interagir à l’échelle planétaire. Ce livre examine les conséquences, tant pour le travail que pour les travailleurs, de la marchandisation et de l’échange des emplois au-delà des marchés du travail locaux. Allant au-delà du discours habituel sur la mondialisation « le monde est plat », les contributeurs examinent à la fois la transformation du travail lui-même et les systèmes, réseaux et processus plus larges qui permettent le travail numérique dans un marché planétaire, en offrant des perspectives empiriques et théoriques. Les contributeurs - des universitaires et des experts de premier plan issus de diverses disciplines - abordent une variété de questions, notamment la modération du contenu, les véhicules autonomes et les assistants vocaux. Ils se penchent d’abord sur la nouvelle expérience du travail et constatent que, malgré ses connexions planétaires, le travail reste géographiquement collé et intégré dans des contextes distincts. Ils examinent ensuite comment les réseaux planétaires de travail peuvent être cartographiés et problématisés, ils discutent de la multiplicité productive et de l’interdisciplinarité de la réflexion sur le travail numérique et ses réseaux et, enfin, ils imaginent comment le travail planétaire pourrait être réglementé. Les directeurs Mark Graham est professeur de géographie de l’Internet à l’Oxford Internet Institute et chargé de cours à l’Alan Turing Institute. Il est l’éditeur du livre Digital Economies at Global Margins (MIT Press et CRDI, 2019). Fabian Ferrari est un candidat au doctorat à l’Oxford Internet Institute

Gay Rites: Interaction Rituals And The Social Construction Of Sexual Reality In The Philadelphia Gayborhood

In an era of increased cultural and political acceptance of homosexuality, scholars and laymen alike have investigated whether and how gay spaces, such as bars and neighborhoods, will persist. This dissertation takes an interactionist approach to these questions by interrogating how people actively construct the sexual reality of gay public space—as spaces rooted in sexual identity and as spaces of sexual interaction. I draw on approximately 400 hours of participant observation in gay bars and nightclubs in and around Philadelphia’s Gayborhood neighborhood, as well as countless informal interviews in the bars and 30 supplemental in-depth interviews. My theoretical approach is informed by a Durkheimian tradition that privileges interaction rituals as the bases for macro constructs such as culture, identity, and social stratification. I find that while diverse revelers patronize bars, restaurants, and nightclubs in a slice of Center City Philadelphia where there are rainbow street signs, rainbow flags, and a rainbow crosswalk, these symbols alone do not foster a gay definition of urban space. Collectively, these groups of people re-accomplish the sexual reality of the Gayborhood as gay public space to varying degrees through interaction rituals of socializing, drinking, dancing, holding hands, kissing, singing, and more. Gay rituals do not necessarily need to be enacted by gay people to generate positive emotions and feelings that restock gay symbols with excitement and cultural resonance. I also find that gay bars and nightclubs offer multiple, potentially competing realities. This precarity can exacerbate inequalities in the Gayborhood, such as categorical exclusions rooted in heteronormativity as well as poor mental health outcomes of gay club-goers. Broadly, I argue that the constructs of “gayborhoods” and “gay bars” are ideal contexts to identify and explain the interactional mechanisms through which we conceive of and manage the “sexual” in our social worlds

The Play in the System

What does artistic resistance look like in the twenty-first century, when disruption and dissent have been co-opted and commodified in ways that reinforce dominant systems? In The Play in the System Anna Watkins Fisher locates the possibility for resistance in artists who embrace parasitism—tactics of complicity that effect subversion from within hegemonic structures. Fisher tracks the ways in which artists on the margins—from hacker collectives like Ubermorgen to feminist writers and performers like Chris Kraus—have willfully abandoned the radical scripts of opposition and refusal long identified with anticapitalism and feminism. Space for resistance is found instead in the mutually, if unevenly, exploitative relations between dominant hosts giving only as much as required to appear generous and parasitical actors taking only as much as they can get away with. The irreverent and often troubling works that result raise necessary and difficult questions about the conditions for resistance and critique under neoliberalism today