Contagion of Cheating Behaviors in Online Social Networks

Jiyoung Woo, Sung Wook Kang, Huy Kang Kim, Juyong Park

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Human behaviors are known to spread through social contact. The diffusion process on social networks has also been leveraged to understand the spread of undesirable contagion. The contagion of malicious or even criminal behaviors in online social networks is just beginning to attract attention. Here, we study the social contagion problem of cheating behavior found in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that provides a lifelike environment with rich and realistic user interactions. Because cheating users boast an abnormal thus conspicuous degree of success, it has a strong chance of being noticed by their friends and leading them to cheat themselves. To detect and prevent cheating, it is beneficial to understand this dynamic as a contagion problem. In this paper, we show the existence of the contagion of cheating. We then explore various possible social reinforcement mechanisms after introducing several factors to quantify the effect of social reinforcement on the contagion and analyze the dynamics of bot diffusion in an extensive user interaction log from a major MMORPG.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)29098-29108
Number of pages11
JournalIEEE Access
Volume6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018 May 5

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by Korea University and in part by the Soonchunhyang University Research Fund under Grant 20160854.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2013 IEEE.

Keywords

  • Diffusion model
  • online game
  • social contagion
  • social network

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Computer Science
  • General Materials Science
  • General Engineering

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Contagion of Cheating Behaviors in Online Social Networks'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this