On Twitter Purge: A Retrospective Analysis of Suspended Users
Farhan Asif Chowdhury, Lawrence R. Allen, Mohammad Yousuf, Abdullah Mueen
Abstract
Abuse and spam in Twitter have long been a pressing issue, and in response, Twitter regularly purges (i.e., suspends in mass) accounts that violate Twitter Rules. However, there is no available information about the characteristics and activities of these regularly purged users. We have developed a novel and comprehensive measurement mechanism to identify millions of purged Twitter users and collect their tweets. We have identified 2.4M purged users and collected 1M tweets made by them over eight months. Using our dataset, we perform a retrospective analysis to characterize their account properties and behavioral activities. We analyze their tweet content to identify their role and abuse strategy over-time.