Discord in the voter model for complex networks

Fuente: arXiv
Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Vendeville, Antoine, Zhou, Shi, Guedj, Benjamin
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
_version_ 1866917594544472064
author Vendeville, Antoine
Zhou, Shi
Guedj, Benjamin
author_facet Vendeville, Antoine
Zhou, Shi
Guedj, Benjamin
contents Online social networks have become primary means of communication. As they often exhibit undesirable effects such as hostility, polarisation or echo chambers, it is crucial to develop analytical tools that help us better understand them. In this paper, we are interested in the evolution of discord in social networks. Formally, we introduce a method to calculate the probability of discord between any two agents in the multi-state voter model with and without zealots. Our work applies to any directed, weighted graph with any finite number of possible opinions, allows for various update rates across agents, and does not imply any approximation. Under certain topological conditions, their opinions are independent and the joint distribution can be decoupled. Otherwise, the evolution of discord probabilities is described by a linear system of ordinary differential equations. We prove the existence of a unique equilibrium solution, which can be computed via an iterative algorithm. The classical definition of active links density is generalized to take into account long-range, weighted interactions. We illustrate our findings on real-life and synthetic networks. In particular, we investigate the impact of clustering on discord, and uncover a rich landscape of varied behaviors in polarised networks. This sheds lights on the evolution of discord between, and within, antagonistic communities.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2203_02002
institution arXiv
publishDate 2022
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Discord in the voter model for complex networks
Vendeville, Antoine
Zhou, Shi
Guedj, Benjamin
Social and Information Networks
Physics and Society
Online social networks have become primary means of communication. As they often exhibit undesirable effects such as hostility, polarisation or echo chambers, it is crucial to develop analytical tools that help us better understand them. In this paper, we are interested in the evolution of discord in social networks. Formally, we introduce a method to calculate the probability of discord between any two agents in the multi-state voter model with and without zealots. Our work applies to any directed, weighted graph with any finite number of possible opinions, allows for various update rates across agents, and does not imply any approximation. Under certain topological conditions, their opinions are independent and the joint distribution can be decoupled. Otherwise, the evolution of discord probabilities is described by a linear system of ordinary differential equations. We prove the existence of a unique equilibrium solution, which can be computed via an iterative algorithm. The classical definition of active links density is generalized to take into account long-range, weighted interactions. We illustrate our findings on real-life and synthetic networks. In particular, we investigate the impact of clustering on discord, and uncover a rich landscape of varied behaviors in polarised networks. This sheds lights on the evolution of discord between, and within, antagonistic communities.
title Discord in the voter model for complex networks
topic Social and Information Networks
Physics and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.02002