Scientific American 201907

(Rick Simeone) #1
92 Scientific American, July 2019

Vaping Hashtags Used by Humans

Vaping Hashtags Used by Bots

Behaviors and community
Products and community
Multiple-substance use

Human topic clusters

Behaviors and multiple-substance use
Behaviors and community
Products
Health, smoking cessation and multiple-substance use

Bot topic clusters

Bots tend to repeat a small number of hashtags
referring to e-cigarettes and vaping, so pairs of hashtags
are much more concentrated than in human tweets.
Topics of conversation (colors) are also more segregated.
Researchers found 137 hashtags used in 1,600 pairs.

Numerous
human
hashtags refer
to e-cigarettes
and vaping. No
pairs of hashtags
dominate, so the
usage pattern is
spread somewhat
evenly. Color clusters
represent general topics of
conversation, which often
overlap. Terms near the center are most
common to all three topic clusters. Researchers
found 238 hashtags (dots) used in 5,203 pairs (lines).

#cigars

#cigar

#cigars

#cigar

#quitsmoking#quitsmoking

#health#health

#buzz

#ecigs#ecigs

#vaping#vaping

#vapelife#vapelife

#ejuice#ejuice

#vapeporn#vapeporn
#vapenation#vapenation

#cigars#cigars

#whisky

#eliquid#eliquid

#vaping#vaping

#vapes#vapes

#weed#weed

#vapeorizer#vapeorizer

#cannabis
#vapes

#cannabis
#vapes

#vape#vape

#bigtobacco#bigtobacco

#ejuice#ejuice

#vaper#vaper

#smoke#smoke

#instavape#instavape

#vapecommunity#vapecommunity

#ecig#ecig

#vapors#vapors

#vapeclub#vapeclub #atomizer#atomizer

#vapestagram#vapestagram

#vapesociety#vapesociety

#smokers#smokers

#nowsmoking#nowsmoking

#tobacco#tobacco

#marijuana#marijuana

#scotch#scotch

#smoker#smoker
#cigarettes#cigarettes
#hookah#hookah

#addiction#addiction #blu#blu

#blu

#tobacco#tobacco

#cigaratte#cigarette

#smoke#smoke

#smoking#smoking

#photography#photography

#galenocigars#galenocigars

#life
#love

#life
#love #ecig#ecig#vapor#vapor#vape#vape

#ecigs#ecigs

#vapefam#vapefam

#vapelife#vapelife

#smok#smok

#vaporstorm

#eliquids#eliquids

#vapepen#vapepen

#vapefamily#vapefamily

#vapeshop#vapeshop

#vapecommunity#vapecommunity
#vapeporn#vapeporn#vapers#vapers

#vaporizer#vaporizer

#esmoke#esmoke

#esmoking

#online

#beast#beast

#mod#mod

#cheap#cheap

#cigpet

#starterskit#starterskit

#esmoker#esmoker

#mobile#mobile #ismog#ismog

#modbox

#marijuana#marijuana
#weed#weed

#cannabis#cannabis

#cbd#cbd

#thc#thc
#cool#cool

#bongs#bongs

#quality#quality

#ejuice#ejuice

GRAPHIC SCIENCE
Text by Mark Fischetti | Graphic by Sree Priyanka Uppu

Smoke Screen


Social media bots promote unproved
benefits of e-cigarettes

Vaping is hot. A clever analysis of
Twitter posts reveals one possible
reason: automated accounts, or bots,
may be convincing people that elec-
tronic cigarettes are beneficial.
Re searchers analyzed 2.2  million
tweets about vaping and discov-
ered that hash tags used in
tweets by humans differ from
those in tweets by bots. Bots
fo cus on new products and
on vaping as an effective way
to stop smoking tobacco even
though “there is limited scien-
tific evidence for that,” says
study leader Jon-Patrick Allem,
an assistant professor of research
at the University of Southern Califor-
nia. Hashtags written by humans em-
phasize people’s lifestyles—vaping is cool,
vapers are a community. Allem speculates the
bots are propagated by manufacturers or by orga-
nizations that promote vaper rights or that are
generally against government regulation.

Only tweets that
contained two or more
hashtags were analyzed
because hashtags occurring
together indicates they are
related. The most frequently
used hashtag terms
are noted.
Each node
( dot ) is a hashtag.
Each line connects hashtags
that occur together. The
thicker the line, the more often
the hashtag pair occurs.
Gray lines do not fall within
the primary topic clusters.
SOURCE: “E-CIGARETTE SURVEILLANCE WITH SOCIAL MEDIA DATA: SOCIAL BOTS, EMERGING TOPICS, AND TRENDS,”
BY JON-PATRICK ALLEM ET AL. IN JMIR PUBLIC HEALTH AND SURVEILLANCE, VOL. 3, NO. 4, ARTICLE E98; 2017

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