The influence of repressive legislation on the structure of a social media network

TL;DR

This study examines how repressive legislation in Quebec affected social media user behavior and network structure during protests, revealing that while behavior changed, the network's ability to facilitate information spread remained intact.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence that repressive laws alter user behavior but do not disrupt the overall social media network structure for organizing protests.

Findings

User behavior changed post-legislation

Network structure remained stable

Information flow efficiency persisted

Abstract

Social media have been widely used to organize citizen movements. In 2012, 75% university and college students in Quebec, Canada, participated in mass protests against an increase in tuition fees, mainly organized using social media. To reduce public disruption, the government introduced special legislation designed to impede protest organization. Here, we show that the legislation changed the behaviour of social media users but not the overall structure of their social network on Twitter. Thus, users were still able to spread information to efficiently organize demonstrations using their social network. This natural experiment shows the power of social media in political mobilization, as well as behavioural flexibility in information flow over a large number of individuals.