Meme spread in networks Matthew Simmons, Lada Adamic, Eytan Adar School of Information University of Michigan

outline  patterns of mutation of information flowing online  a simple model to reproduce patterns  relationship to network structure  for details:  M Simmons, LA Adamic, E Adar, ‘Memes Online: Extracted, Subtracted, Injected, and Recollected’, ICWSM ‘Memes Online: Extracted, Subtracted, Injected, and Recollected’

quotes that never were closest proximity: "I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson," said he. "When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one you use a hansom. As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at present busy enough to justify the hansom." "Excellent!" I cried. "Elementary," said he. Is it “Elementary, my dear Watson”?

events that never were "Street style shooting in Oxford Circus for ASOS and Diet Coke. Let me know if you're around!!” "Apparently theres a shooting at Oxford Circus, gunmen on the move. We've been told to stay in” “Shooting in progress in Oxford Circus? What?” source:

5 Do bloggers kill kittens? 02:00 AM Friday Mar. 05, 2004 PST Wired publishes:Wired "Warning: Blogs Can Be Infectious. ” 7:25 AM Friday Mar. 05, 2004 PST Slashdot posts:Slashdot "Bloggers' Plagiarism Scientifically Proven" 9:55 AM Friday Mar. 05, 2004 PST Metafilter announcesMetafilter "A good amount of bloggers are outright thieves." Before lunch: Eytan writes FAQ: Do bloggers kill kittens? After lunch: Several bloggers title posts ‘ Bloggers kill kittens! ’

MemeTracker data by Jure Leskovec, Lars Backstrom and Jon Kleinberg, KDD ‘09

MemeTracker dataset

phrase edit types cuts addition alteration

Additions: returning to the source? “I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” – MLK Jr. I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” – MLK Jr. I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. – MLK Jr.

shorter phrases are more popular phrase variants within the same cluster on MemeTracker "That's not change. That's just calling something the same thing something different. You know you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. You know you can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change, it's still going to stink after eight years. We've had enough of the same old thing.” – Barack Obama You know you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.

new variants proliferate ahead of the peak in popularity

simple urn model source: abcdefghijk abcdefghijk cdefg cde cdefg imperfect copies are made choose to copy either from source or from another copy more likely to choose more recent copy to copy from

phrase length (data vs. model) MemeTracker datamodel

phrase length over time

phrase length over time (data vs. model) MemeTracker data model

what if copies are not derived from copies? Diamond writes: "We should all worry about how distorted the confirmation process has become, and how little understanding of monetary policy there is among some of those responsible for its Congressional oversight. We need to preserve the independence of the Fed from efforts to politicize monetary policy and to limit the Fed’s ability to regulate financial firms." [..] advantage of some of the many opportunities that come to a Nobel laureate. So don’t worry about me. But we should all worry about how distorted the confirmation process has become, and how little understanding of monetary policy there is among some of those responsible for its Congressional oversight. [..]  Blogrunner records blogs directly quoting NY Times articles

what if copies are not derived from copies?  When quotes are found on blogs directly citing the source (e.g. NYTimes), there is no shortening over time

How are memes affected by network structure?

network structure and meme mutation  subset of MemeTracker data contains network information  9,208 nodes and 61,511 distinct edges  in-degree of a source node is positively correlated with percentage copies made of the source that mutate it (  = 0.45)  in-degree of copying node is slightly positively correlated with probability that it will mutate what it copies (  = 0.14)  betweenness is positively correlated with sd(length) of copies (  = 0.43)

Fidelity in the mainstream media & blogs Proportion of derivative types occurring on edges Types of alteration among phrases that are not exact copies

summary  information changes as it propagates through a network  multi-step diffusion is responsible for change  the change can be modeled as a simple urn process  the characteristics of nodes (mainstream vs. blogs) and their position in the network correspond to different amounts of change thanks: for details: M Simmons, LA Adamic, E Adar, ‘Memes Online: Extracted, Subtracted, Injected, and Recollected’, ICWSM ‘Memes Online: Extracted, Subtracted, Injected, and Recollected’

future work  Automatically identifying segments of text that are likely to become memes  Characterizing common mutations  Sentiment change and network structure

questions?