Social Influence as a Parameter to Prioritize Social Problems

Abstract

Every city in this world has tons of problems. No city right now is perfect. Every city has a person in charge of solving these problems. However, he/she will have to decide which one to solve first. This could, in turn, lead to a bias in choice, as the person in charge would want to solve the problem that is bothering them the most and not the one that is causing the biggest nuisance in the public’s eye. To solve this problem in deciding what problem to solve first, social media provides an option of public opinion. The person in charge will upload a series of photos in any social media platform indicating the most prominent problems present around. The public, if they feel a problem is missing from the list could also add that picture to the series. An application is developed using R Language with the IBM Bluemix cloud, if the platform used was Facebook, then the picture with most likes/shares are the one the public wants first solved. If the platform used is Twitter, then the most retweeted/liked picture is the problem the public wants to be solved first. However, still, a problem persists. A person not in a particular location could vote for a problem of that location. So if many such people vote, the local people of the area are going to find it hard to voice their opinion. For this purpose, a location check can be done using the location detection features in both Facebook and Twitter.