Mentions of Security Vulnerabilities on Reddit, Twitter and GitHub

Activity on social media is seen as a relevant sensor for different aspects of the society. In a heavily digitized society, security vulnerabilities pose a significant threat that is publicly discussed on social media. This study presents a comparison of user-generated content related to security vulnerabilities on three digital platforms: two social media conversation channels (Reddit and Twitter) and a collaborative software development platform (GitHub). Our data analysis shows that while more security vulnerabilities are discussed on Twitter, relevant conversations go viral earlier on Reddit. We show that the two social media platforms can be used to accurately predict activity on GitHub. CCS CONCEPTS • Networks → Online social networks; • Theory of computation → Social networks.