Description

In the graph are shown the most used hashtags connected with the word ‘opioid’ as well as the hashtags that have been banned and those slightly modified. Many times, those changes are related simply with the replacement of a vowel or consonant. The modification of hashtags is something we noticed in the early phase of our research.

In fact, after becoming a sort of online drug-dealing market, Instagram – also thanks to some users’ warning – decided to ban some hashtags related to opioids in order to try to fight the crisis and prevent the platform from being an additional way for people to buy opiates. Even though measures were taken, we were able to track down hashtags that, harking back to the originals that have been banned by the social network, have been slightly modified and now used by people. This show on one side how much of a problem is for Instagram to have people talking about this issue, and on the other hand how much users are keen in sharing pictures and thoughts connected to opioids.

Protocol

Data

Data Source: DensityDesign

Timestamp: November 2018

View Data (500Kb)

The dataset contains all the links between “opioid” hashtag and strongly related ones. For each edge a column describes the strength of connection with the center. Data about connections are obtained using RITETAG.