Abstract: Considering the phenomenon that several partial paths were recorded by the users in most social networks， a fast source localization method based on partial paths was provided by using the previous source localization method based on observers. The four cases of screening candidate sources were analyzed based on the proposed method， which made use of the partial paths recorded by the observers. By screening candidate sources， the purpose of reducing the computing expense and improving the location efficiency was achieved. The results of experiments on model network showed the effectiveness of the method.

Key words: social network, information diffusion, source localization, partial paths, candidate source screen