Effects of a soft cut-off on node-degree in the Twitter social network

These networks are experiencing an exponential rise in the number and activity of users in recent years, leading to problems of scalability and increasing spam. Most OSNs currently impose restrictions on the number of social links that a user can have, in order to reduce strain on the OSN infrastructure and to prevent spammers from contacting large number of users indiscriminately. However, such restrictions are increasingly being criticized for being too prohibitive for socially active and popular users. Hence there is a growing need for the OSN authorities to design restrictions that fulfill their objectives while minimizing user-dissatisfaction; this is evident from the innovative ‘soft’ cut-off imposed in Twitter instead of the traditional ‘hard’ cut-offs in other OSNs. SG_Colloquium Chair of Systems Design