Analyzing user behavior of the micro-blogging website Sina Weibo during hot social events

This work selects 21 hot events that were widely discussed on Sina Weibo in 2011, and finds that male users are more likely to be involved, messages that contain pictures and those posted by verified users aremore likely to been reposted, while those with URLs are less likely.

Abstract

The spread and resonance of users' opinions on SinaWeibo, the most popular\nmicro-blogging website in China, are tremendously influential, having\nsignificantly affected the processes of many real-world hot social events. We\nselect 21 hot events that were widely discussed on SinaWeibo in 2011, and do\nsome statistical analyses. Our main findings are that (i) male users are more\nlikely to be involved, (ii) messages that contain pictures and those posted by\nverified users are more likely to be reposted, while those with URLs are less\nlikely, (iii) gender factor, for most events, presents no significant\ndifference in reposting likelihood.\n