{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,18]],"date-time":"2026-01-18T05:31:24Z","timestamp":1768714284797,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":31,"publisher":"Springer Science and Business Media LLC","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,1,7]],"date-time":"2021-01-07T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1609977600000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,1,7]],"date-time":"2021-01-07T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1609977600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100008582","name":"McGill University","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["Social Sciences and Humanities Emerging Scholars Accelerator Grant"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["Social Sciences and Humanities Emerging Scholars Accelerator Grant"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100008582","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["link.springer.com"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["EPJ Data Sci."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2021,12]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title><jats:p>Given the challenges in collecting up-to-date, comparable data on migrant populations the potential of digital trace data to study migration and migrants has sparked considerable interest among researchers and policy makers. In this paper we assess the reliability of one such data source that is heavily used within the research community: geolocated tweets. We assess strategies used in previous work to identify migrants based on their geolocation histories. We apply these approaches to infer the travel history of a set of Twitter users who regularly posted geolocated tweets between July 2012 and June 2015. In a second step we hand-code the entire tweet histories of a subset of the accounts identified as migrants by these methods. Upon close inspection very few of the accounts that are classified as migrants appear to be migrants in any conventional sense or international students. Rather we find these approaches identify other highly mobile populations such as frequent business or leisure travellers, or people who might best be described as \u201ctransnationals\u201d. For demographic research that draws on this kind of data to generate estimates of migration flows this high mis-classification rate implies that findings are likely sensitive to the adjustment model used. For most research trying to use these data to study migrant populations, the data will be of limited utility. We suspect that increasing the correct classification rate substantially will not be easy and may introduce other biases.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1140\/epjds\/s13688-020-00254-7","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,1,7]],"date-time":"2021-01-07T13:13:31Z","timestamp":1610025211000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":11,"title":["Challenges when identifying migration from geo-located Twitter data"],"prefix":"10.1140","volume":"10","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4375-7471","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Caitrin","family":"Armstrong","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Ate","family":"Poorthuis","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Matthew","family":"Zook","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Derek","family":"Ruths","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Thomas","family":"Soehl","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,1,7]]},"reference":[{"key":"254_CR1","unstructured":"United Nations (2017) International migration report 2017: highlights"},{"key":"254_CR2","series-title":"International world wide web conferences steering committee, Republic and Canton of Geneva","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"935","DOI":"10.1145\/3041021.3051104","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 26th international conference on world wide web companion. WWW\u201917 companion","author":"I Weber","year":"2017","unstructured":"Weber I, State B (2017) Digital demography. In: Proceedings of the 26th international conference on world wide web companion. WWW\u201917 companion. International world wide web conferences steering committee, Republic and Canton of Geneva, pp\u00a0935\u2013939. Switzerland"},{"key":"254_CR3","unstructured":"Hughes C, Zagheni E, Abel GJ, Sorichetta A, Wi\u2019sniowski A, Weber I, Tatem AJ (2016) Inferring migrations: traditional methods and new approaches based on mobile phone, social media, and other big data: feasibility study on inferring (labour) mobility and migration in the European union from big data and social media data"},{"key":"254_CR4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Dubois A, Zagheni E, Garimella K, Weber I (2018) Studying migrant assimilation through facebook interests. ArXiv preprint. arXiv:1801.09430","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-030-01159-8_5"},{"key":"254_CR5","first-page":"79","volume-title":"Social interactions in complex intelligent systems","author":"C Bosco","year":"2017","unstructured":"Bosco C, Patti V, Bogetti M, Conoscenti M, Ruffo GF, Schifanella R, Stranisci M (2017) Tools and resources for detecting hate and prejudice against immigrants in social media. In: Social interactions in complex intelligent systems, pp\u00a079\u201384. AISB"},{"key":"254_CR6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"439","DOI":"10.1145\/2567948.2576930","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 23rd international conference on world wide web","author":"E Zagheni","year":"2014","unstructured":"Zagheni E, Garimella VRK, Weber I, State B (2014) Inferring international and internal migration patterns from Twitter data. In: Proceedings of the 23rd international conference on world wide web. ACM, New York, pp\u00a0439\u2013444"},{"key":"254_CR7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"103","DOI":"10.1145\/3091478.3091496","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 2017 ACM on web science conference","author":"L Fiorio","year":"2017","unstructured":"Fiorio L, Abel G, Cai J, Zagheni E, Weber I, Vinu\u00e9 G (2017) Using Twitter data to estimate the relationship between short-term mobility and long-term migration. In: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM on web science conference. ACM, New York, pp\u00a0103\u2013110"},{"key":"254_CR8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"80","DOI":"10.1080\/08898480.2019.1565271","volume":"26","author":"A Righi","year":"2019","unstructured":"Righi A (2019) Assessing migration through social media: a review. Math Popul Stud 26:80\u201391","journal-title":"Math Popul Stud"},{"key":"254_CR9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Nguyen H, Garimella K (2017) Understanding international migration using tensor factorization. 1702.04996","DOI":"10.1145\/3041021.3054222"},{"issue":"10","key":"254_CR10","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3390\/ijgi6100302","volume":"6","author":"F H\u00fcbl","year":"2017","unstructured":"H\u00fcbl F, Cvetojevic S, Hochmair H, Paulus G (2017) Analyzing refugee migration patterns using geo-tagged tweets. ISPRS Intl J Geo-Inf 6(10):302","journal-title":"ISPRS Intl J Geo-Inf"},{"issue":"4","key":"254_CR11","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"721","DOI":"10.1111\/padr.12102","volume":"43","author":"E Zagheni","year":"2017","unstructured":"Zagheni E, Weber I, Gummadi K (2017) Leveraging Facebook\u2019s advertising platform to monitor stocks of migrants. Popul Dev Rev 43(4):721\u2013734","journal-title":"Popul Dev Rev"},{"key":"254_CR12","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/CBO9780511489235.004","volume-title":"Ethnicity without groups","author":"R Brubaker","year":"2004","unstructured":"Brubaker R (2004) Ethnicity without groups. Harvard University Press, Cambridge"},{"key":"254_CR13","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"348","DOI":"10.1145\/2380718.2380764","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 4th annual ACM web science conference","author":"E Zagheni","year":"2012","unstructured":"Zagheni E, Weber I (2012) You are where you e-mail: using e-mail data to estimate international migration rates. In: Proceedings of the 4th annual ACM web science conference. ACM, New York, pp\u00a0348\u2013351"},{"key":"254_CR14","first-page":"265","volume-title":"Proceedings of the sixth ACM international conference on web search and data mining","author":"I Weber","year":"2013","unstructured":"Weber I, Zagheni E et al. (2013) Studying inter-national mobility through ip geolocation. In: Proceedings of the sixth ACM international conference on web search and data mining. ACM, New York, pp\u00a0265\u2013274"},{"key":"254_CR15","first-page":"4","volume-title":"Proceedings of the tenth international conference on information and communication technologies and development. ICTD\u201919","author":"L Hong","year":"2019","unstructured":"Hong L, Wu J, Frias-Martinez E, Villarreal A, Frias-Martinez V (2019) Characterization of internal migrant behavior in the immediate post-migration period using cell phone traces. In: Proceedings of the tenth international conference on information and communication technologies and development. ICTD\u201919. ACM, New York, pp\u00a04\u20131412"},{"key":"254_CR16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Messias J, Benevenuto F, Weber I, Zagheni E (2016) From migration corridors to clusters: the value of google+ data for migration studies. 1607.00421","DOI":"10.1109\/ASONAM.2016.7752269"},{"key":"254_CR17","first-page":"531","volume-title":"International conference on social informatics","author":"M Rodriguez","year":"2014","unstructured":"Rodriguez M, Helbing D, Zagheni E et al. (2014) Migration of professionals to the us. In: International conference on social informatics. Springer, Berlin, pp\u00a0531\u2013543"},{"key":"254_CR18","first-page":"45","volume-title":"AAAI workshop on expanding the boundaries of health informatics using AI (HIAI)","author":"M Dredze","year":"2013","unstructured":"Dredze M, Paul MJ, Bergsma S, Tran H (2013) Carmen: a Twitter geolocation system with applications to public health. In: AAAI workshop on expanding the boundaries of health informatics using AI (HIAI), vol\u00a023, p\u00a045"},{"key":"254_CR19","first-page":"3","volume-title":"Standards and practices in large-scale social media research: papers from the 2015 ICWSM workshop","author":"MM Malik","year":"2015","unstructured":"Malik MM, Lamba H, Nakos C, Pfeffer J (2015) Population bias in geotagged tweets. In: Standards and practices in large-scale social media research: papers from the 2015 ICWSM workshop. AAAI Press, Menlo Park, pp\u00a03\u2013759"},{"key":"254_CR20","volume-title":"Ninth international AAAI conference on web and social media","author":"D Jurgens","year":"2015","unstructured":"Jurgens D, Finethy T, McCorriston J, Xu YT, Ruths D (2015) Geolocation prediction in Twitter using social networks: a critical analysis and review of current practice. In: Ninth international AAAI conference on web and social media"},{"issue":"4","key":"254_CR21","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"568","DOI":"10.1080\/00330124.2014.907699","volume":"66","author":"M Graham","year":"2014","unstructured":"Graham M, Hale SA, Gaffney D (2014) Where in the world are you? Geolocation and language identification in Twitter. Prof Geogr 66(4):568\u2013578. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/00330124.2014.907699","journal-title":"Prof Geogr"},{"issue":"3","key":"254_CR22","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1145\/3178112","volume":"12","author":"J Bakerman","year":"2018","unstructured":"Bakerman J, Pazdernik K, Wilson A, Fairchild G, Bahran R (2018) Twitter geolocation: a hybrid approach. ACM Trans Knowl Discov Data 12(3):1\u201317","journal-title":"ACM Trans Knowl Discov Data"},{"key":"254_CR23","unstructured":"International Organization for Migration (2019) Who is a migrant. Available at https:\/\/www.iom.int\/who-is-a-migrant"},{"key":"254_CR24","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/9781108664271","volume-title":"The invention of the passport: surveillance, citizenship and the state","author":"JC Torpey","year":"2018","unstructured":"Torpey JC (2018) The invention of the passport: surveillance, citizenship and the state. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge"},{"issue":"6178","key":"254_CR25","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1520","DOI":"10.1126\/science.1248676","volume":"343","author":"GJ Abel","year":"2014","unstructured":"Abel GJ, Sander N (2014) Quantifying global international migration flows. Science 343(6178):1520\u20131522. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1126\/science.1248676","journal-title":"Science"},{"issue":"4","key":"254_CR26","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"115","DOI":"10.1080\/10630732.2017.1335153","volume":"24","author":"A Poorthuis","year":"2017","unstructured":"Poorthuis A, Zook M (2017) Making big data small: strategies to expand urban and geographical research using social media. J Urban Technol 24(4):115\u2013135","journal-title":"J Urban Technol"},{"key":"254_CR27","unstructured":"Ruths D, Armstrong C (2020) The residence history inference problem. 2003.04155"},{"issue":"1","key":"254_CR28","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1140\/epjds\/s13688-019-0212-x","volume":"8","author":"Y Liao","year":"2019","unstructured":"Liao Y, Yeh S, Jeuken GS (2019) From individual to collective behaviours: exploring population heterogeneity of human mobility based on social media data. EPJ Data Sci 8(1):34","journal-title":"EPJ Data Sci"},{"issue":"2","key":"254_CR29","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"15","DOI":"10.1007\/BF02819922","volume":"44","author":"A Favell","year":"2007","unstructured":"Favell A, Feldblum M, Smith MP (2007) The human face of global mobility: a research agenda. Society 44(2):15\u201325","journal-title":"Society"},{"key":"254_CR30","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.4324\/9780203879061","volume-title":"Social transnationalism: lifeworlds beyond the nation-state","author":"S Mau","year":"2010","unstructured":"Mau S (2010) Social transnationalism: lifeworlds beyond the nation-state. Routledge, Abingdon"},{"key":"254_CR31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1093\/oso\/9780198294429.001.0001","volume-title":"Worlds in motion: understanding international migration at the end of the millennium: understanding international migration at the end of the millennium","author":"DS Massey","year":"1999","unstructured":"Massey DS, Arango J, Hugo G, Kouaouci A, Pellegrino A (1999) Worlds in motion: understanding international migration at the end of the millennium: understanding international migration at the end of the millennium. Clarendon Press, Oxford"}],"container-title":["EPJ Data Science"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"http:\/\/link.springer.com\/content\/pdf\/10.1140\/epjds\/s13688-020-00254-7.pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"http:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1140\/epjds\/s13688-020-00254-7\/fulltext.html","content-type":"text\/html","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"http:\/\/link.springer.com\/content\/pdf\/10.1140\/epjds\/s13688-020-00254-7.pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2024,8,22]],"date-time":"2024-08-22T01:11:51Z","timestamp":1724289111000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/epjdatascience.springeropen.com\/articles\/10.1140\/epjds\/s13688-020-00254-7"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2021,1,7]]},"references-count":31,"journal-issue":{"issue":"1","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2021,12]]}},"alternative-id":["254"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1140\/epjds\/s13688-020-00254-7","relation":{},"ISSN":["2193-1127"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2193-1127","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2021,1,7]]},"assertion":[{"value":"16 April 2020","order":1,"name":"received","label":"Received","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"18 November 2020","order":2,"name":"accepted","label":"Accepted","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"7 January 2021","order":3,"name":"first_online","label":"First Online","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"The authors declare that they have no competing interests.","order":1,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Competing interests"}}],"article-number":"1"}}