In the post-Snowden era, everyone is talking about the extent of Internet tracking - however, Don Morrison, of the Norwegian Institute of Science and Technology of Trondheim, opts for a different "way" for countermeasures by developing a method to monitor censorship on the Internet, and in particular on services such as Twitter and Chinese Weibo.
According to a New Scientist article, Morrison created a virtual social network - simulation in which two users are considered "connected" since one of their posts appears on the other's timeline. The "pattern" of user-linking thus provides the "metadata" used to analyze network behavior.
Most social networks consist of clusters of 'communities', the links between which create characteristic structures. When Morrison assimilated the activity of government censors, which at least halted 10% of publications, the "shape" of these structures changed significantly, indicating a "deformed" and less well-connected network. This was most apparent in cases where "popular" publications were replicated (via retweet, for example).
Morrison's system was able to "grasp" accurately 85% when large-scale censorship took place. It was also possible to program the system so that when it identified changes to the network's "shape", it would be possible to send an alert / activation alert for activists and protesters so they knew when the authorities were interfering in their publications.
Morrison envisions an automatic online censorship detector: "What is the" weather forecast "in terms of censorship on these networks today? I can imagine putting pressure on governments to curb censorship, "he notes.
His work will be presented at the International Workshop on Data Mining in Social Networks in Taiwan in May.
