DOBNet: exploiting the discourse of deception behaviour to uncover online deception strategies

Online deception is fuelled by the escalated penetration of the Internet and social media. As the threat of online deception increases, understanding deception behaviour and underlying strategies is having a greater social impact. The verbal behaviour of online deception has recently been extended to the discourse level; nevertheless, discourse behaviours have been examined in isolation without referring to other behaviours in the discourse. By conceptualising the discourse of online behaviour as a social network (DOBNet), this research investigates possible impacts of deception intent on the central structures of DOBNet at three different levels: the discourse behaviour, subnetwork, and whole network. The empirical results of discourse network analysis and statistical tests provide partial support for each of the hypothesised effects. The findings not only demonstrate the efficacy of discourse in distinguishing deceivers from truth-tellers but also extend deception theories by confirming deception strategies from the perspective of discourse network and by uncovering unique characteristics of online deception strategies.