Users and Bots behaviour analysis in Blockchain Social Media

Today, Online Social Networks (OSNs) represent an important communication channel in the daily life of many people in the world. OSNs are platforms where people are encouraged to interact, consume, generate, and share content with other users by establishing connections. However, they have several important issues, such as privacy and fake news, which have been the input to exploit new decentralized solution. Blockchain-based Online Social Media are decentralized Social Media where the Blockchain technology is used to reward users for their social activity. Several BOSMs have been proposed, however, their real benefits are still unknown, as is the behaviour of malicious users, such as bots and trolls. This paper proposes an analysis of the social behaviour of users and bots in Blockchain-based Online Social Media in order to highlight features that can be used in bots detection techniques. We consider Steemit as a case study because it is the most representative platform of its kind. Results show that bots are on average much more active than human users, thus suggesting that bots can be outlined using publicly available features.