Hyperparameter tuning of AdaBoost algorithm for social spammer identification

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to enhance the performance of spammer identification problem in online social networks. Hyperparameter tuning has been performed by researchers in the past to enhance the performance of classifiers. The AdaBoost algorithm belongs to a class of ensemble classifiers and is widely applied in binary classification problems. A single algorithm may not yield accurate results. However, an ensemble of classifiers built from multiple models has been successfully applied to solve many classification tasks. The search space to find an optimal set of parametric values is vast and so enumerating all possible combinations is not feasible. Hence, a hybrid modified whale optimization algorithm for spam profile detection (MWOA-SPD) model is proposed to find optimal values for these parameters. Design/methodology/approach In this work, the hyperparameters of AdaBoost are fine-tuned to find its application to identify spammers in social networks. AdaBoost algorithm linearly combines several weak classifiers to produce a stronger one. The proposed MWOA-SPD model hybridizes the whale optimization algorithm and salp swarm algorithm. Findings The technique is applied to a manually constructed Twitter data set. It is compared with the existing optimization and hyperparameter tuning methods. The results indicate that the proposed method outperforms the existing techniques in terms of accuracy and computational efficiency. Originality/value The proposed method reduces the server load by excluding complex features retaining only the lightweight features. It aids in identifying the spammers at an earlier stage thereby offering users a propitious environment.