Where in the world is my tweet: Detecting irregular removal patterns on Twitter
Where in the world is my tweet: Detecting irregular removal patterns on Twitter
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Date
2018-09-20
Authors
Timoneda, Joan C.
Advisor
Citation
Timoneda JC (2018) Where in the world is my tweet: Detecting irregular removal patterns on Twitter. PLoS ONE 13(9): e0203104. https://doi. org/10.1371/journal.pone.0203104
DRUM DOI
Abstract
Twitter data are becoming an important part of modern political science research, but key
aspects of the inner workings of Twitter streams as well as self-censorship on the platform
require further research. A particularly important research agenda is to understand removal
rates of politically charged tweets. In this article, I provide a strategy to understand removal
rates on Twitter, particularly on politically charged topics. First, the technical properties of
Twitter's API that may distort the analyses of removal rates are tested. Results show that
the forward stream does not capture every possible tweet -between 2 and 5 percent of
tweets are lost on average, even when the volume of tweets is low and the firehose not
needed. Second, data from Twitter's streams are collected on contentious topics such as
terrorism or political leaders and non-contentious topics such as types of food. The statistical
technique used to detect uncommon removal rate patterns is multilevel analysis. Results
show significant differences in the removal of tweets between different topic groups. This
article provides the first systematic comparison of information loss and removal on Twitter
as well as a strategy to collect valid removal samples of tweets.
Notes
Partial funding for Open Access provided by the UMD Libraries' Open Access Publishing Fund.