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Excess reciprocity distorts reputation in online social networks

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  • Livan, Giacomo
  • Caccioli, Fabio
  • Aste, Tomaso

Abstract

The peer-to-peer (P2P) economy relies on establishing trust in distributed networked systems, where the reliability of a user is assessed through digital peer-review processes that aggregate ratings into reputation scores. Here we present evidence of a network effect which biases digital reputation, revealing that P2P networks display exceedingly high levels of reciprocity. In fact, these are much higher than those compatible with a null assumption that preserves the empirically observed level of agreement between all pairs of nodes, and rather close to the highest levels structurally compatible with the networks’ reputation landscape. This indicates that the crowdsourcing process underpinning digital reputation can be significantly distorted by the attempt of users to mutually boost reputation, or to retaliate, through the exchange of ratings. We uncover that the least active users are predominantly responsible for such reciprocity-induced bias, and that this fact can be exploited to obtain more reliable reputation estimates. Our findings are robust across different P2P platforms, including both cases where ratings are used to vote on the content produced by users and to vote on user profiles.

Suggested Citation

  • Livan, Giacomo & Caccioli, Fabio & Aste, Tomaso, 2017. "Excess reciprocity distorts reputation in online social networks," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 83563, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:83563
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/83563/
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    Cited by:

    1. Mircea Zloteanu & Nigel Harvey & David Tuckett & Giacomo Livan, 2018. "Digital Identity: The effect of trust and reputation information on user judgement in the Sharing Economy," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(12), pages 1-18, December.
    2. Starr, Richard G. & Zhu, Andrew Q. & Frethey-Bentham, Catherine & Brodie, Roderick J., 2020. "Peer-to-peer interactions in the sharing economy: Exploring the role of reciprocity within a Chinese social network," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 67-80.
    3. Andrey Fradkin & Elena Grewal & David Holtz, 2021. "Reciprocity and Unveiling in Two-Sided Reputation Systems: Evidence from an Experiment on Airbnb," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(6), pages 1013-1029, November.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance

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