Package: twitterexplorer
An interface to explore Twitter data through interactive network visualizations.FeaturesThetwitter explorerhelps computational social scientists to:CollectTwitter data by providing a visual interface for the Twitter Search API (v2 Standard, v2 Academic Research, v1.1 Standard).Transformthe collected data into networks: retweet/quote/mention/reply networks capturing different interactions between users and hashtag networks revealing the semantic layer of the debate.Explorethese networks interactively by using state-of-the-art graph visualizations.Quick startThetwitter explorerrequires Python ≥ 3.7. If you meet this requirement, open a terminal and run:$ pip install twitterexplorerYou can now run the collector and the visualizer that will open in a new browser tab:$ twitterexplorer collector
$ twitterexplorer visualizerSince v.0.6.0, the twitter-explorer can also be used as a Python package. Please have a look at the exampleshere.Getting startedPlease refer to thedocumentationfor detailed installation instructions and how to use thetwitter explorer.ScreenshotsData protectionThetwitter explorerfacilitates the collection of data through the Twitter Search API. Please respect thedeveloper agreementwhen handling the collected data. Our interface includes a privacy option that allows to remove all accessible metadata of users that have less than 5000 followers (no public figures) from the interactive visualization in order to comply with current privacy standards. By only displaying tweets that still exist at the time of exploration, the interface complies withTwitter's display requirements.Future developmentAdd progress bar for collectorIncorporate dynamics of the retweet networksAdd different graph measuresCommon errorsError:StreamlitAPIExceptiondue to an outdated version of StreamlitFix:pip3 install streamlit --upgradeError:AttributeError: module 'google.protobuf.descriptor' has no attribute '_internal_create_key'Fix:pip3 install protobuf --upgradeHow to citePournaki, A., Gaisbauer, F., Banisch, S., & Olbrich, E. (2021). The Twitter Explorer: A Framework for Observing Twitter through Interactive Networks. Journal of Digital Social Research, 3(1), 106–118.https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v3i1.64Related softwaregazouilloireA command line tool for long-term tweets collection, including the possibility of automatic recursive retrieval within the corpus of all tweets to which collected tweets are answeringminetA command line tool for scraping the public Twitter API (among other things). As of v0.4, the minet file format is compatible with the twitter-explorer!DMI-TCATA tool for streaming real-time tweets and storing them in an SQL databasetwarcAnother CLI for Twitter search/streaming APIAboutThe idea for the twitter explorer originated from fruitful discussions in the context of theOdycceusproject betweenArmin Pournaki,Felix Gaisbauer,Sven BanischandEckehard Olbrich. The tool is designed and developed by Armin Pournaki.AcknowledgementsThetwitter explorerstands on the shoulders of giants:StreamlitThe frontends of the collector and visualizer are made with Streamlit, a powerful and easily accessible tool to create interactive Python applications.force-graphThe interactive graph visualization relies on the force-graph library.igraphAll the graph operations in thetwitter explorerare handled by the Python version of igraph.twarcandtweepyEasy-to-use Python wrappers for Twitter APIs.twitwiA collection of Twitter-related helper functions for Python.FundingThis project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 732942.LicenseThetwitter exploreris licensed under theGNU GPLV3license.