SOCIAL NETWORKS, COGNITIVE BIASES AND FAKE NEWS: CAN A SIMPLE COMPUTER MODEL EXPLAIN A COMPLEX PHENOMENON?
SOCIAL NETWORKS, COGNITIVE BIASES AND FAKE NEWS: CAN A SIMPLE COMPUTER MODEL EXPLAIN A COMPLEX PHENOMENON?

Author(s): Blaž Rodič
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Economy
Published by: Udruženje ekonomista i menadžera Balkana
Keywords: Fake news; Disinformation; Cognitive bias; Emergent phenomena; Social networks; Agent-based modelling; Social psychology.
Summary/Abstract: Misinformation spread by individuals sharing fake news can cause problems in social, economic and democratic systems. The World Economic Forum considers the viral spread of misinformation online to be one of the main threats to our society. While the reasons why people spread misinformation likely haven't changed in the last millennia, the rise of Internet powered social networks has allowed news to spread rapidly among millions of users, and gave rise to new phenomena such as echo chambers. The question we ask in this paper is whether we can model the dissemination of fake news and the emerging phenomena using relatively simple rules in an agent-based model. We present the current state of research in the field of fake news, the agent-based modelling methodology, and the current state of our model development.

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