Gaining insights into the #Sialkot incident using network science

Gaining insights into the #Sialkot incident using network science by Abdul Wahab (2022)

Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms where users express their ideas in the form of tweets. Collectively, the tweets provide insights into events happening around the world. On December 3, 2021, in Sialkot, a mob brutally killed a Sri Lankan factory manager over false acquisitions of blasphemy. After the judicial trial, 88 persons were punished. Punishments included death penalties, imprisonments, and fines. In this study, we identify the important people and popular topics related to the unfortunate Sialkot event. We use Twitter search API to retrieve data on #sialkot incident. Around 700,000 tweets were retrieved during the period of 2021-12-02 to 2021-12-15. Network science provides methods to understand the relationships among various entities. Using methods from network science, we identify the most prominent people, topics discussed, and various groups of people in the discussions about the incident on Twitter. Additionally, network properties are discussed and network models are demonstrated.