Hashtag hijacking: What it is, why it happens and how to avoid it

Abstract

Hashtag hijacking is a form of cyber content attack that arises in modern social media microblogging platforms. It occurs when a hashtag is used for a different purpose than the one originally intended, such as tagging messages with undesirable content and surfacing this content to a target audience. In marketing campaigns, hashtag hijacking can have a significant impact on a company’s brand and/or the success of a marketing campaign. Despite the practical importance of hashtag hijacking and its numerous citations in the popular media, there has been little academic literature dealing with this emerging topic. This paper presents a first study of this phenomenon from a practical yet academically oriented perspective. Namely, it provides (1) a taxonomical classification of the different types of hashtag hijacking attacks; (2) a socio-technical data-mining methodology for detecting it at an early stage; and (3) a proposed response strategy informed by the traditional marketing literature.