SIS Seminar Series

Thursday May 18, 2017

Likes-R-Us: Understanding and Protecting Likes in Social Media 

The recent dramatic increase in the usage and prevalence of social media has led to the creation and sharing of a significant amount of information in various formats. When it comes to information consumption, people are not only accessing and appreciating published and shared contents, but also interacting with them by adding comments or pressing a Like button (or expressing other relationships similar to Like in nature such as “+1” in Google+, “re-pin” in Pinterest, and “favorite” in Flickr). As one of popular activities in social media, in particular, pressing a Like button toward published contents can be interpreted as an indication of one's shared interests to the contents or the original posters. Therefore, such Like activities form relationships and networks among people, raising interesting questions about their unique characteristics and implications. In this talk, I will present some of recent findings from the "Likes-R-Us" project (https://goo.gl/vsLt2h) at Penn State, identifying novel relationships from Like activities, understanding different age groups better through the lens of Likes, and uncovering fake Likes to maintain healthy eco systems.

**Please arrive early, seating is limited**