Simulating the Propagation of Rumours with Spreaders of Distinct Characters

Abstract

The occurrence of a disaster and the appearance of a new product are items of news that can reach many people rapidly. Decision-makers would like to know how many individuals will obtain such information. In this paper, we study the case in which there are spreaders who think that the news is true and others that claim it is false. We simulate the propagation of a rumour and propose an algorithm for estimating the parameters of the resulting dynamical system. The relation between the parameters defining the simulation and the dynamical system is also studied. We conclude that the simulation describes the phenomenon well, in particular when the method proposed in this paper is used to estimate the parameters. (original abstract)