ON THE DETECTION OF HIDDEN OPINION MANIPULATION IN MICROBLOGGING PLATFORMS
Résumé
This article studies a new model for describing opinion manipulation effects on a microblogging directed network system. The network can evolve in time, by means of the creation and the deletion of some connexions. When a connexion is created, the individuals have access to the whole history of posts written by the corresponding author and, when a connexion is destroyed, all the posts written by the corresponding author become invisible. The agents' opinions are described by a set of continuous opinion variables in the closed interval Ω = [−1, 1]. They represent the agreement (or disagreement) of the corresponding agent with respect to a binary question (such as a referendum or an election with two candidates). The model takes into account the effects on public opinion caused by the sign and the intensity of the initial opinions of the agents, their activity in microblogging platforms and the possible manipulations of the visibility of the posts by the microblogging platform owner. We show that hidden manipulation can have an important impact on the public opinion formation and that very mild interventions of the network owner may induce major effects on the population. We moreover suggest a strategy for detecting whether the blogging platform is neutral or not.
Domaines
Systèmes dynamiques [math.DS]
Origine : Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)
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