Detecting and modelling real percolation and phase transitions of information on social media

Abstract: It is widely believed that information spread on social media is a percolation process, with parallels to phase transitions in theoretical physics. However, evidence for this hypothesis is limited, as phase transitions have not been directly observed in any social media. Here, through analysis of 100 million Weibo and 40 million Twitter users, we identify percolation-like spread, and find that it happens more readily than current theoretical models would predict. The lower percolation threshold can be explained by the existence of positive feedback in the coevolution between network structure and user activity level, such that more active users gain more followers. Moreover, this coevolution induces an extreme imbalance in users' influence. Our findings indicate that the ability of information to spread across social networks is higher than expected, with implications for many information spread problems.