In platforms we trust: misinformation on social networks in the presence of social mistrust

George Charlson

Janeway Institute Working Papers from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge

Abstract: We examine the effect social mistrust has on the propagation of misinformation on a social network. Agents communicate with each other and observe information sources, changing their opinion with some probability determined by their social trust, which can be low or high. Low social trust agents are less likely to be convinced out of their opinion by their peers and, in line with recent empirical literature, are more likely to observe misinformative information sources. A platform facilitates the creation of a homophilic network where users are more likely to connect with agents of the same level of social trust and the same social characteristics. Networks in which worldview is relatively important in determining network structure have more pronounced echo chambers, reducing the extent to which high and low social trust agents interact. Due to the asymmetric nature of these interactions, echo chambers then decrease the probability that agents believe misinformation. At the same time, they increase polarisation, as disagreeing agents interact less frequently, leading to a trade-off which has implications for the optimal intervention of a platform wishing to reduce misinformation. We characterise this intervention by delineating the most effective change in the platform's algorithm, which for peer-to-peer connections involves reducing the extent to which relatively isolated high and low social trust agents interact with one another.

Keywords: communication; misinformation; network design; platforms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D82 D83 D85 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-01-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic, nep-net, nep-pay, nep-soc and nep-ure
Note: gc556
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.janeway.econ.cam.ac.uk/working-paper-pdfs/jiwp2202.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:cam:camjip:2202

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Janeway Institute Working Papers from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jake Dyer ().