A survey of trust in social networks

Abstract

Web-based social networks have become popular as a medium for disseminating information and connecting like-minded people. The public accessibility of such networks with the ability to share opinions, thoughts, information, and experience offers great promise to enterprises and governments. In addition to individuals using such networks to connect to their friends and families, governments and enterprises have started exploiting these platforms for delivering their services to citizens and customers. However, the success of such attempts relies on the level of trust that members have with each other as well as with the service provider. Therefore, trust becomes an essential and important element of a successful social network. In this article, we present the first comprehensive review of social and computer science literature on trust in social networks. We first review the existing definitions of trust and define social trust in the context of social networks. We then discuss recent works addressing three aspects of social trust: trust information collection , trust evaluation , and trust dissemination . Finally, we compare and contrast the literature and identify areas for further research in social trust.

What Motivates Farmers’ Adaptation to Climate Change? The Case of Apple Farmers of Shaanxi in China

“…As a result, numerous empirical studies demonstrated that social networks do significantly influences the adoption decision of individual farmers [36][37][38][39][40]. Additionally, Sherchan et al [41] pointed out that the success of a social network for an individual relies on the level of trust between himself and other members in the same community. Without social trust, members may not feel comfortable expressing their opinions [42], which is makes it harder for individuals to receive and share information within their social network.…”

Social Internet of Vehicles for Smart Cities

“…Trust is transitive when it can be extended outside the scope of the two entities who established it [108]. However, this is not always the case.…”

Trusting the Social Web: issues and challenges

“…In the Social Web, trust has to be studied from different aspects: data (or content), services (or applications), service providers (Web sites, organisations, governments or individuals) and service consumers (organisations or individuals). There has been already work reported in the literature covering these different aspects [11,19].…”

“…The emergence of the Social Web has spurred new research in the study of trust, and, recently, a number of trust models for social networks have been developed with a specific focus on social aspects of trust. Sherchan et al presented a comprehensive review of trust in social networks covering literature from both Computer Science and Social Sciences [19].…”