19_03_29_ECO_merino

"Verification in social networks is decreasing due to the density of the network". This was stated by Luca Merlino, professor at the University of Antwerp, on April 28 at the School of Economics and and Business Administration during the presentation of the paper: "Debunking rumors in networks". During the session, in which several members of academic staff participated, Merlino explained the effects of the spread of false messages in social networks as well as the cost of reducing the proliferation of these messages.

"In this paper we model how a true and false message spreads in a population of truth-seeking agents who verify the accuracy of messages. The implications of model are that while reducing verification costs unambiguously hurts the spread of the rumor," Professor Merlino explained. "Paradoxically the elimination of rumor-spreading accounts (bots) may, in fact, be detrimental as it impacts to verify less", he added.

This presentation is part of the cycle of seminars of research of School of Economics.