Identifying Discriminating Network Motifs in YouTube Spam

Abstract: Like other social media websites, YouTube is not immune from the attention of spammers. In particular, evidence can be found of attempts to attract users to malicious third-party websites. As this type of spam is often associated with orchestrated campaigns, it has a discernible network signature, based on networks derived from comments posted by users to videos. In this paper, we examine examples of different YouTube spam campaigns of this nature, and use a feature selection process to identify network motifs that are characteristic of the corresponding campaign strategies. We demonstrate how these discriminating motifs can be used as part of a network motif profiling process that tracks the activity of spam user accounts over time, enabling the process to scale to larger networks.