Simulation of Online Social Networks with Krowdix

Abstract

Online Social Networks (OSNs) are a key phenomenon of Internet. Simulations are widely used in their study as means to harness their size and complexity, and to overcome the difficulties to set up experiments in real environments. However, these tools are still limited. They are usually focused on the structure of relationships and emulate changes only from statistical data. This approach is unsuitable to study OSN evolution as a result of the personal attributes and behaviours of their members. Our work addresses this issue with an agent-based simulation framework for OSNs called Krowdix. It provides support to specify simulations of discrete time where agents represent members acting according to their profiles and context. This context comprehends the environment, other agents, groups of agents and the whole network. Agent actions are responsible of network changes. Additionally, system actions can be used to represent unexpected events. This agent-based approach facilitates the translation of actual observations to simulation models, and explaining networks in terms of their members. A case study on Facebook illustrates the use of the framework.