The migration of Twitter users to Mastodon following Elon Musk's acquisition presents a unique opportunity to study collective behavior and gain insights into the drivers of coordinated behavior in online media. We analyzed the social network and the public conversations of about 75,000 migrated users and observed that the temporal trace of their migrations is compatible with a phenomenon of social influence, as described by a compartmental epidemic model of information diffusion. Drawing from prior research on behavioral change, we delved into the factors that account for variations across different Twitter communities in the effectiveness of the spreading of the influence to migrate. Communities in which the influence process unfolded more rapidly exhibit lower density of social connections, higher levels of signaled commitment to migrating, and more emphasis on shared identity and exchange of factual knowledge in the community discussion. These factors account collectively for 57% of the variance in the observed data. Our results highlight the joint importance of network structure, commitment, and psycho-linguistic aspects of social interactions in describing grassroots collective action, and contribute to deepen our understanding of the mechanisms driving processes of behavior change of online groups.

翻译：在埃隆·马斯克收购推特后，部分推特用户向Mastodon平台的迁移行为，为研究集体行为并理解在线媒体中协同行为的驱动因素提供了独特机遇。我们分析了约7.5万名迁移用户的社交网络与公开对话，发现其迁移行为的时间轨迹与信息传播的区室化流行病模型所描述的社会影响现象相吻合。借鉴行为改变领域的前期研究，我们深入探究了导致不同推特社区在迁移影响力传播有效性方面存在差异的因素。在影响力传播进程更快的社区中，社交连接密度更低，用户对迁移行为的承诺信号更强，且社区讨论更强调共同身份与事实性知识交流。这些因素共同解释了观测数据中57%的变异。研究结果揭示了网络结构、承诺强度以及社交互动中的心理语言学因素在描述草根集体行动中的协同重要性，有助于深化我们对在线群体行为改变机制的理解。