Social Network Movement Between Platforms and User Triangles in Social Media
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/LHTN-01-2020-0001/full/html#sec001
https://dankanator.com/98947/bryce-hall-sway-house-bffs/
Social networks are very prominent in social media, since the purpose of social media is to connect people. Many social media platforms pop-up, and only certain ones grow to gain millions of users. For example, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are major social media platforms. In the most recent years, TikTok has been gaining traction and has acquired over a billion users.
I find it very fascinating how many social media apps can be popular for a time period, and then lose popularity, and ultimately be replaced by another platform. The article discusses Tik tok as a new platform, after the uprise and downfall of platforms like Vine, Musical.ly, Yik Yak, and Google+. Vine was a very popular video-sharing platform that got shut down in 2017. Vine had a very unique audience, that Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram could not satisfy the same needs for, as a funny and weird space. After Vine, Musical.ly came out and many Vine users joined Musical.ly. To me, this is interesting because it seems like an old social network is evolving into a completely different social network, but with very similar overlap of users. We learned about giant components in social network graphs. It would certainly be worth seeing the overlap between the giant components of Vine and Musical.ly.
Many platforms have to deal with hate speech and cyberbullying and must try to filter and control hate speech, without bordering on the line of censorship. TikTok is not an exception to this. As a user of TikTok, I have noticed a lot of hate speech and negative comments on TikTok. When one person posts a negative comment on TikTok, people have the option to agree, disagree, or say nothing. When a bystander defends the person who posted the video, other people also tend to join and share their opinion. If we think of this as a social triangle, the hate commenter and the defending bystander who are against each other have a negative relationship, and anyone who shares their input has to pick a side. The social triangle will have two negative and one positive link whether a third user joins one side or the other. This would result in a balanced triangle. A fourth user also has two choices when joining the triangle. They can either join the side of the hate commenter or the bystander. This will also result in a balanced triangle.
However, there are obviously many different opinions on the internet, so different types of triangles can form. There could be a fully positive triangle, unbalanced triangles with three people in a disagreement, or two friends against one person. Social media platforms are made up of many virtual communities with very small social triangles. Social media makes it easy to leave and join new triangles. For example, many popular TikTok users created content houses after connecting through the platform. Users witness these TiktTok houses fall apart, switch new people, and see new ones form. One example is the Sway House. A group of popular TikTok boys formed a house. However, TikTokers Noah Beck, Blake Gray, and Bryce Hall have conflict with each other. Apparently, Bryce Hall asked to live with Noah and Blake, but the idea did not get received well. Within the Sway House social network, there are now negative bonds between Bryce with Noah and Blake, resulting in an unbalanced triangle. Bryce is leaving Sway to pursue other paths. Social media shows us that the ease of connecting with others is a very positive thing, but can also lead to negative links and confrontations.