Much like writing a hit song, coming up with good “soundbites” or things that “go viral” is a lot harder than it looks. This is one of the reasons that it is often the case that the really catchy messages are created by the same handful or two of people – those who are known to be good at it – and then broadcast widely over a cooperating network so as to have maximum reach.
For example, using our algorithms, we were able to determine that in a prior U.S. presidential election, the vast majority of widely repeated messages against the Republican candidate originated from only four individual accounts.
By contrast, the adjoining graph depicts a genuinely grassroots network relating to a referendum on Catalan independence.
