# Elephant in the Room: Dissecting and Reflecting on the Evolution of Online Social Network Research

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.13681 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.13681/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 20 Nov 2024.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [From Beats to Breaches:How Offensive AI Infers Sensitive User Information from Playlists](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.04724/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Billions of individuals engage with Online Social Networks (OSN) daily. The owners of OSN try to meet the demands of their end-users while complying with business necessities. Such necessities may, however, lead to the adoption of restrictive data access policies that hinder research activities from "external" scientists -- who may, in turn, resort to other means (e.g., rely on static datasets) for their studies. Given the abundance of literature on OSN, we -- as academics -- should take a step back and reflect on what we have done so far, after having written thousands of papers on OSN. This is the first paper that provides a holistic outlook to the entire body of research that focused on OSN -- since the seminal work by Acquisti and Gross (2006). First, we search through over 1 million peer-reviewed publications, and derive 13,842 papers that focus on OSN: we organize the metadata of these works in the Minerva-OSN dataset, the first of its kind -- which we publicly release. Next, by analyzing Minerva-OSN, we provide factual evidence elucidating trends and aspects that deserve to be brought to light, such as the predominant focus on Twitter or the difficulty in obtaining OSN data. Finally, as a constructive step to guide future research, we carry out an expert survey (n=50) with established scientists in this field, and coalesce suggestions to improve the status quo such as an increased involvement of OSN owners. Our findings should inspire a reflection to "rescue" research on OSN. Doing so would improve the overall OSN ecosystem, benefiting both their owners and end-users and, hence, our society.