We've seen that the least vigorous discussions tend to be about ageing rock stars."
— Mike Thelwall, head of the Statistical Cybermetrics research group in Wolverhampton, Britain, discusses recent findings that online social networks are driven by bad behavior. "Negative emotions accelerate the number of messages sent by users, in turn generating social groups from nowhere, says Thelwall. A single post can quickly generate a community of feeling if it is provocative enough."