How "Big Vs" dominate Chinese microblog: A comparison of verified and unverified users on Sina Weibo

Ning Wang, James She, Junting Chen

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

21 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Sina Weibo has become the most popular microblogging platform in the Chinese-speaking community. Verification scheme is a distinctive element of Weibo with an aim to help the public to identify genuine accounts and select trust- worthy information sources. Verified users are also known as "Big Vs", who are identified by a verification badge, a capitalised letter "V" added alongside account name. By comparing statistical characteristics of both verified and un- verified users, this paper presents that a minority of verified users are largely consider as in uentials, who tend to be more central in the networks and play vital roles in keep- ing connectivity as well as network robustness. Although verification scheme is likely to draw more users to become in uentials, user behaviours are still considerably more in- uenced by user roles rather than by verification scheme.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationWebSci 2014 - Proceedings of the 2014 ACM Web Science Conference
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages182-186
Number of pages5
ISBN (Print)9781450326223
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014
Externally publishedYes
Event6th ACM Web Science Conference, WebSci 2014 - Bloomington, IN, United States
Duration: 23 Jun 201426 Jun 2014

Publication series

NameWebSci 2014 - Proceedings of the 2014 ACM Web Science Conference

Conference

Conference6th ACM Web Science Conference, WebSci 2014
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityBloomington, IN
Period23/06/1426/06/14

Keywords

  • Microblog
  • Online social network
  • Sina weibo
  • Verification

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