A measurement model for trustworthiness of information on social network services

Due to the spread of unreliable online information on social network services (SNS), the users are faced with a difficult problem for determining if the information is trustworthy or not. At present, the users should make a decision overall by themselves for trustworthiness of information. Therefore, we need a way to systematically evaluate trustworthiness of information on SNS. In this paper, we design a trust metrics, called TII (Trust Index for Information on SNS), as a criterion for measuring the trust degree of information on SNS. Using TII, the users are readily able to determine whether the information is trustworthy. Consequently, we can estimate the social trust degree based on the variation of TII. This paper derives the various factors affecting trust from the properties of SNS, and proposes a model to evaluate the trustworthiness of information that is directly produced and distributed over the online network. Quantifying the trust degree of the information on SNS allows the users to make efficient use of the social network.