Whom Should a Platform Amplify? Truth, Engagement, and Networked Polarization

Zaruhi Hakobyan

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: Social-media platforms allocate attention by deciding whose content receives reach. We study this problem in a network coordination model in which users learn from observed signals but also care about coordinating with others. Amplifying a source, therefore, spreads information while potentially making that source a more influential coordination reference. For any finite directed network, we show that the effect of an intervention on truth-tracking accuracy decomposes into an information gain and a change in network-amplified bias risk. The latter depends on how sources' influence profiles interact with the network's entire bias composition, so the most informative source need not be the best source to amplify. Broadcasting can improve the use of common information, while amplification of directionally biased sources can reduce accuracy. Integrated communities can outperform segregated ones; users may reject informative cross-cutting links, and engagement-oriented platforms may favor connections that reduce collective accuracy.

Date: 2026-07, Revised 2026-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gth, nep-mic and nep-net
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2607.10228 Latest version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:arx:papers:2607.10228

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers from arXiv.org
Bibliographic data for series maintained by arXiv administrators ().