Explain the Iranian community’s unusually high reply frequency

Determine the underlying causes driving the Iranian follow back community on X (formerly Twitter) to engage disproportionately in short reply interactions (such as thanking or affirming) compared to other communities, resulting in an anomalously low retweet ratio among these accounts. Identify behavioral, cultural, linguistic, network, or platform-specific mechanisms that could explain this elevated reply behavior relative to the other communities analyzed in the study.

Background

In the characterization of user activity, the authors analyze retweet ratios across communities using the last 200 tweets per user. While most communities show mixed or comparable retweet ratios between follow back and non-follow back accounts, the Iranian community stands out as an anomaly with a notably low mean retweet ratio.

The anomaly appears to be driven by a high frequency of short replies, such as brief acknowledgments and affirmations, rather than retweets. The authors explicitly state that the reason for this distinctive interaction pattern in the Iranian community is unclear, making it an unresolved question within their findings.