{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,18]],"date-time":"2026-04-18T21:57:05Z","timestamp":1776549425199,"version":"3.51.2"},"reference-count":45,"publisher":"Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)","issue":"2","funder":[{"name":"SERICS","award":["PE00000014"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["PE00000014"]}]},{"name":"NRRP MUR program","award":["EU\u2013NGEU"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["EU\u2013NGEU"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["dl.acm.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Distrib. Ledger Technol."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,30]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>User migration (i.e., the movement of large sets of users from one online social platform to another one) is one of the main phenomena occurring in modern online social networks and even involves the most recent alternative paradigms of online social networks, such as blockchain-based online social networks. In these platforms, user migration mainly occurs through hard forks of the supporting blockchain (i.e., a split of the original blockchain and the creation of an alternative blockchain), to which users may decide to migrate. However, our understanding of user migration and its mechanisms is still limited, particularly regarding the role of densely connected user groups (communities) during migration and fork events. Are there differences between users who stay and those who decide to leave, in terms of network structure and discussion topics? In this work, we show, through network-based analysis centered on the identification of communities on multilayer networks and text mining that (a) the \u201cposition\u201d of a group within the network of social and economic interactions is connected to the likelihood of a group to migrate (i.e., marginal groups are more likely to leave); (b) group network structure is also important, as users in densely connected groups interacting through monetary transactions are more likely to stay; (c) users who leave are characterized by different discussion topics; and (d) user groups interacting through monetary transactions show interest in migration-related content if they are going to leave. These findings highlight the importance of social and economic relationships between users during a user migration caused by fork events In general, in the larger context of online social media, it motivates the need to investigate user migration through a network-inspired approach based on groups and specific subgraphs while leveraging user-generated content, at the same time.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1145\/3640020","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,1,10]],"date-time":"2024-01-10T12:15:02Z","timestamp":1704888902000},"page":"1-19","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["Analyzing User Migration in Blockchain Online Social Networks through Network Structure and Discussion Topics of Communities on Multilayer Networks"],"prefix":"10.1145","volume":"4","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4035-7464","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Cheick Tidiane","family":"Ba","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Computer Science Department, University of Milan, Milan, Italy and Queen Mary University London, London, United Kingdom"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4861-455X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Manuel","family":"Dileo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Computer Science Department, University of Milan, Milan, Italy"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3286-4666","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Alessia","family":"Galdeman","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Computer Science Department, University of Milan, Milan, Italy"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4808-4106","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Matteo","family":"Zignani","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Computer Science Department, University of Milan, Milan, Italy"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3779-2809","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Sabrina","family":"Gaito","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Computer Science Department, University of Milan, Milan, Italy"}]}],"member":"320","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,13]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_2_2_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3582515.3609552"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_3_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3501247.3531597"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_4_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3462203.3475913"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_5_2","article-title":"The role of cryptocurrency in the dynamics of blockchain-based social networks: The case of Steemit","author":"Ba Cheick Tidiane","year":"2022","unstructured":"Cheick Tidiane Ba, Matteo Zignani, and Sabrina Gaito. 2022. The role of cryptocurrency in the dynamics of blockchain-based social networks: The case of Steemit. PLoS ONE 17, 6 (2022), e0267612.","journal-title":"PLoS ONE"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_6_2","first-page":"291","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 2022 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops and Other Affiliated Events (PerCom Workshops \u201922)","author":"Ba Cheick Tidiane","year":"2022","unstructured":"Cheick Tidiane Ba, Matteo Zignani, and Sabrina Gaito. 2022. The role of groups in a user migration across blockchain-based online social media. In Proceedings of the 2022 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops and Other Affiliated Events (PerCom Workshops \u201922). IEEE, 291\u2013296."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_7_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Mathieu Bastian Sebastien Heymann and Mathieu Jacomy. 2009. Gephi: An open source software for exploring and manipulating networks. In Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media. http:\/\/www.aaai.org\/ocs\/index.php\/ICWSM\/09\/paper\/view\/154","DOI":"10.1609\/icwsm.v3i1.13937"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_8_2","first-page":"993","article-title":"Latent Dirichlet allocation","author":"Blei David M.","year":"2003","unstructured":"David M. Blei, Andrew Y. Ng, and Michael I. Jordan. 2003. Latent Dirichlet allocation. J. Mach. Learn. Res. (March 2003), 993\u20131022.","journal-title":"J. Mach. Learn. Res."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_9_2","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 39th International Conference on Information Systems","author":"Ciriello Raffaele","year":"2018","unstructured":"Raffaele Ciriello, Roman Beck, and Jason Thatcher. 2018. The paradoxical effects of blockchain technology on social networking practices. In Proceedings of the 39th International Conference on Information Systems. 1\u201317."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_10_2","unstructured":"Cai Davies James R. Ashford Luis Espinosa-Anke Alun David Preece Liam D. Turner Roger M. Whitaker Mudhakar Srivatsa and Diane H. Felmlee. 2021. Multi-scale user migration on Reddit. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Cyber Social Threats at the 15th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM \u201921)."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_11_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRevX.5.011027"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_12_2","unstructured":"Steem. 2021. Steem Developer Portal: Broadcast Ops. Retrieved January 12 2024 from https:\/\/developers.steem.io\/apidefinitions\/broadcast-ops"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_13_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/MCSE.2017.3421554"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_14_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"212","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-031-18840-4_16","volume-title":"Discovery Science","author":"Dileo Manuel","year":"2022","unstructured":"Manuel Dileo, Cheick Tidiane Ba, Matteo Zignani, and Sabrina Gaito. 2022. Link prediction with text in online social networks: The role of textual content on high-resolution temporal data. In Discovery Science. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 13601. Springer, 212\u2013226."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_15_2","unstructured":"Hive. 2021. Hive Developer Portal\u2014API Definitions. Retrieved January 12 2024 from https:\/\/developers.hive.io\/apidefinitions\/"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_16_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3411170.3411246"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_17_2","volume-title":"Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Communications","author":"Galdeman Alessia","year":"2023","unstructured":"Alessia Galdeman, Matteo Zignani, and Sabrina Gaito. 2023. User migration across Web3 online social networks: behaviors and influence of hubs. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Communications."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_18_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1609\/icwsm.v15i1.18049"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_19_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.pmcj.2020.101131"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_20_2","first-page":"89","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 2021 3rd International Conference on Blockchain Computing and Applications (BCCA \u201921)","author":"Guidi Barbara","year":"2021","unstructured":"Barbara Guidi and Andrea Michienzi. 2021. Interaction communities in blockchain online social media. In Proceedings of the 2021 3rd International Conference on Blockchain Computing and Applications (BCCA \u201921). IEEE, 89\u201396."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_21_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/TCSS.2020.3042745"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_22_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2020.3038550"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_23_2","article-title":"Assessment of wealth distribution in blockchain online social media","author":"Guidi Barbara","year":"2022","unstructured":"Barbara Guidi, Andrea Michienzi, and Laura Ricci. 2022. Assessment of wealth distribution in blockchain online social media. IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems. Early Access, December 20, 2022.","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_24_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3618257.3624819"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_25_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-030-23495-9"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_26_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cosrev.2020.100246"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_27_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"163","DOI":"10.1145\/3411170.3411248","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 6th EAI International Conference on Smart Objects and Technologies for Social Good","author":"Kapanova Kristina","year":"2020","unstructured":"Kristina Kapanova, Barbara Guidi, Andrea Michienzi, and Kevin Koidl. 2020. Evaluating posts on the Steemit blockchain: Analysis on topics based on textual cues. In Proceedings of the 6th EAI International Conference on Smart Objects and Technologies for Social Good. 163\u2013168."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_28_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3390\/su11010167"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_29_2","article-title":"Posting bot detection on blockchain-based social media platform using machine learning techniques","volume":"2008","author":"Kim Tae-Hyun","year":"2020","unstructured":"Tae-Hyun Kim, Hyo Min Shin, H. Hwang, and Seungwon Jeong. 2020. Posting bot detection on blockchain-based social media platform using machine learning techniques. arXiv abs\/2008.12471 (2020).","journal-title":"arXiv"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_30_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3178876.3186141"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_31_2","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 25th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence","author":"Kumar Shamanth","year":"2011","unstructured":"Shamanth Kumar, Reza Zafarani, and Huan Liu. 2011. Understanding user migration patterns in social media. In Proceedings of the 25th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence. 1204\u20131209."},{"issue":"1","key":"e_1_3_2_32_2","first-page":"1","article-title":"Understanding the growth of the Fediverse through the lens of Mastodon","volume":"6","author":"Cava Lucio La","year":"2021","unstructured":"Lucio La Cava, Sergio Greco, and Andrea Tagarelli. 2021. Understanding the growth of the Fediverse through the lens of Mastodon. Applied Network Science 6, 1 (2021), 1\u201335.","journal-title":"Applied Network Science"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_33_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3292522.3326041"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_34_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/BigDataSecurity-HPSC-IDS58521.2023.00018"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_35_2","first-page":"3143","article-title":"A survey for the application of blockchain technology in the media","author":"Liu Liqun","year":"2021","unstructured":"Liqun Liu, Weihan Zhang, and Cunqi Han. 2021. A survey for the application of blockchain technology in the media. Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications 14 (2021), 3143\u20133165.","journal-title":"Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_36_2","article-title":"Community detection in multiplex networks","author":"Magnani Matteo","year":"2019","unstructured":"Matteo Magnani, Obaida Hanteer, Roberto Interdonato, Luca Rossi, and Andrea Tagarelli. 2019. Community detection in multiplex networks. arXiv preprint arXiv:1910.07646 (2019).","journal-title":"arXiv preprint arXiv:1910.07646"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_37_2","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 10th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM \u201916)","author":"Newell Edward","year":"2016","unstructured":"Edward Newell, David Jurgens, Haji Mohammad Saleem, Hardik Vala, Jad Sassine, Caitrin Armstrong, and Derek Ruths. 2016. User migration in online social networks: A case study on Reddit during a period of community unrest. In Proceedings of the 10th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM \u201916). 279\u2013288."},{"issue":"1","key":"e_1_3_2_38_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"13","DOI":"10.1140\/epjst\/e2010-01179-1","article-title":"The map equation","volume":"178","author":"Rosvall Martin","year":"2009","unstructured":"Martin Rosvall, Daniel Axelsson, and Carl T. Bergstrom. 2009. The map equation. European Physical Journal Special Topics 178, 1 (2009), 13\u201323.","journal-title":"European Physical Journal Special Topics"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_39_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3390\/app9091788"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_40_2","article-title":"A weighted network analysis of user migrations in a social network","author":"Senaweera Malith","year":"2018","unstructured":"Malith Senaweera, Ruwanmalee Dissanayake, Nuwini Chamindi, Anupa Shyamalal, Charitha Elvitigala, Sameera Horawalavithana, Primal Wijesekara, Kasun Gunawardana, Manjusri Ishwara Ellepola Wickramasinghe, and Chamath Keppitiyagama. 2018. A weighted network analysis of user migrations in a social network. In Proceedings of the 2018 18th International Conference on Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions (ICTer \u201918). 357\u2013362.","journal-title":"Proceedings of the 2018 18th International Conference on Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions (ICTer \u201918)."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_41_2","article-title":"Identification and evolutionary analysis of user collusion behavior in blockchain online social medias","author":"Tang Hongting","year":"2022","unstructured":"Hongting Tang, Jian Ni, and Yanlin Zhang. 2022. Identification and evolutionary analysis of user collusion behavior in blockchain online social medias. IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems. Early Access, October 27, 2022.","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_42_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/0165551517748290"},{"issue":"1","key":"e_1_3_2_43_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"78","DOI":"10.1007\/s13278-021-00779-3","article-title":"Echo chamber detection and analysis: A topology- and content-based approach in the COVID-19 scenario","volume":"11","author":"Villa Giacomo","year":"2021","unstructured":"Giacomo Villa, Gabriella Pasi, and Marco Viviani. 2021. Echo chamber detection and analysis: A topology- and content-based approach in the COVID-19 scenario. Social Network Analysis and Mining 11, 1 (Aug.2021), 78.","journal-title":"Social Network Analysis and Mining"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_44_2","volume-title":"Token Economy: How the Web3 Reinvents the Internet","author":"Voshmgir Shermin","year":"2020","unstructured":"Shermin Voshmgir. 2020. Token Economy: How the Web3 Reinvents the Internet. Vol. 2. Token Kitchen."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_45_2","unstructured":"Rongen Zhang Junyoung Park and Raffaele Ciriello. 2019. The differential effects of cryptocurrency incentives in blockchain social networks. In Proceedings of the Pre-ICIS Workshop on Blockchain and Smart Contract (SIGBPS \u201919)."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_46_2","unstructured":"Yujie Zheng Mariana Andrade and Waifong Boh. 2023. Examining the survival of forked blockchain projects: A multi-stakeholder perspective. In Proceedings of the Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS \u201923). https:\/\/aisel.aisnet.org\/pacis2023\/214"}],"container-title":["Distributed Ledger Technologies: Research and Practice"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/pdf\/10.1145\/3640020","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,13]],"date-time":"2025-06-13T12:39:00Z","timestamp":1749818340000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/10.1145\/3640020"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,13]]},"references-count":45,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,30]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1145\/3640020"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3640020","relation":{},"ISSN":["2769-6480","2769-6480"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2769-6480","type":"print"},{"value":"2769-6480","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,13]]},"assertion":[{"value":"2023-03-30","order":0,"name":"received","label":"Received","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}},{"value":"2023-12-12","order":2,"name":"accepted","label":"Accepted","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}},{"value":"2025-06-13","order":3,"name":"published","label":"Published","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}}]}}