The limits of social mobilization Alex Rutherford ∗, Manuel Cebrian y z, Sohan Dsouza ∗ , Esteban Moro x, Alex Pentland {, and Iyad Rahwan1 ∗ k ∗Computing & Information Science, Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE,yDepartment of Computer Science & Engineering, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA,zNICTA, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia,xDepartment of Mathematics, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Madrid, Spain,{Media Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and kSchool of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK Submitted to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 1 To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email:
[email protected] The Internet and social media has enabled the mobilization of target cities [10], demonstrating yet another example of time-critical large crowds to achieve time-critical feats, ranging from map- social mobilization in tasks that require covering large geographies. ping crises in real-time, to organizing mass rallies, to conducting Despite these numerous successes, we still have limited under- search-and-rescue operations over large geographies. Despite standing of the limits of technology-mediated mobilization. If we significant success, selection bias may lead to inflated expecta- are to rely on social media to react to time-critical emergencies, it is tions of the efficacy of social mobilization for these tasks. What are the limits of social mobilization, and how reliable is it to op- important to understand the conditions under which they can be suc- erate at these limits? We build on recent results on the spatio- cessful, and the risks of failure associated with them.