## 5 Limitations  
In line with any scientific work that brings to the fore new discoveries and a valuable contribution to the specialized literature, each manuscript presents certain limitations that must be highlighted objectively, in such a manner that the succeeding researchers who will expand these areas will have the drawbacks in mind and improve them in future studies.  
The primary aspect that must be considered is related to the exclusive usage of the WoS database for article selection. The rationale behind our decision was based on several aspects, including its popularity and recognition within the scientific community, its up-to-date version, wide dataset, and its covering of various disciplines. These assumptions were fortified by the fact that most of the bibliometric studies found in the specialized literature, around different subjects, were focused solely in this database [22; 23; 24; 25; 26; 27]. This is indeed true, and we fully agree that if other databases had been considered in our analysis, the final data collection set and the results obtained might have differed slightly.  
The next limitation that has to be brought to light is associated with the keywords. During the data collection step, the first exclusion criteria applied was focused on only selecting the papers that contained, either in their titles, abstracts, or author's keywords, some specific words related to social media and natural language processing. It may be possible that due to the desire to select only relevant works for this bibliometric study, some papers could have been omitted by mistake, considering certain factors such as linguistic limitations or different terminologies.  
The exclusion of non-English papers can also represent an impacting decision on the final outcome of the study. Since this analysis only reflects manuscripts written exclusively in English, the omission of valuable papers written in other languages might have been possible.  
Furthermore, another applied exclusion criterion which had major consequences on the reduction in the dataset, more specifically eliminating almost half of the total number of works selected, as spotted in Table 1, is represented by the document type. Considering only the papers marked as articles, some significant studies conducted in books, or even reviews, might have been lost from our analysis.  
Last but not least, the final limitation depicted in this manuscript is represented by the predefined time interval. The year 2024 was excluded, but this did not greatly influence the final set of articles, considering the fact that the present bibliometric analysis carried out in this work was conducted at the beginning of 2024.  
All the aforementioned exclusion criteria were thoroughly examined and meticulously chosen, guided by the strong desire to include only unique papers relevant to the topic of natural language processing in social media research in our analysis.  
Having all these preceding statements pointed out, the purpose of this section was to grant readers a broader vision and understanding behind the article's crafting, highlighting its limitations, and this may represent the foundation of future studies or strategies associated with multiple sectors, such as economics, politics, and even health.  
The topic addressed is of utmost importance, thus making it essential to have a comprehensive view of the studies carried out in this field, since the results and insights gained can be valuable weapons in the fight against the dissemination of fake information across social media platforms, ensuring an environment as safe as possible on social networks and also improving the quality of life, along with increasing users' level of happiness in connection with certain events, products, etc.  
Regarding future studies, the authors encourage future researchers to delve even deeper into this topic, to include wider datasets, as well as exclude the use of filters as much as possible.