Comparing information diffusion mechanisms by matching on cascade size
Comparing information diffusion mechanisms by matching on cascade size
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.2100786118
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发表时间：
2021-11-16
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Ugander, Johan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Juul, Jonas L.;Ugander, Johan
某些类型的信息是否比其他类型的信息传播得更快、更广或更远？为了理解信息传播的不同之处，学者们比较了内容在网络中传播时所采取的路径的结构特性，研究了所谓的级联。通常研究的级联特性包括传播的范围、深度、宽度和速度。从这些属性的统计差异中得出结论可能具有挑战性，因为许多属性是依赖的。在这项工作中，我们证明了控制级联的大小时，研究级联集合之间的结构差异的重要性。我们首先回顾了最近关于在线传播的研究中的两个数据集，这些研究报告了级联拓扑中特定内容的差异：Vosoughi等人对经过验证的真实或虚假新闻内容的Twitter级联的详尽语料库。Vosoughi，D.罗伊，S。阿拉尔Science 359，1146-1151（2018）]和Goel等人的Twitter视频，图片，新闻和请愿的级联比较。戈埃尔，A.安德森，J.霍夫曼，D. J·瓦茨。管理。Sci. 62，180-196（2016）]。使用控制联合级联统计的方法，我们发现，对于假新闻和真新闻级联，报道的结构差异几乎可以完全解释为假新闻级联更大。对于视频、图像、新闻和请愿书，在控制大小时，结构差异仍然存在。研究经典模型的扩散，然后，我们给出的条件下，不同的模型下的结构特性的差异做或不减少的大小差异。我们的研究结果与真实和虚假新闻传播的基本机制是一致的，它们非常相似，主要区别在于传播过程的基本传染性。
Do some types of information spread faster, broader, or further than others? To understand how information diffusions differ, scholars compare structural properties of the paths taken by content as it spreads through a network, studying so-called cascades. Commonly studied cascade properties include the reach, depth, breadth, and speed of propagation. Drawing conclusions from statistical differences in these properties can be challenging, as many properties are dependent. In this work, we demonstrate the essentiality of controlling for cascade sizes when studying structural differences between collections of cascades. We first revisit two datasets from notable recent studies of online diffusion that reported content-specific differences in cascade topology: an exhaustive corpus of Twitter cascades for verified true-or false-news content by Vosoughi et al. [S. Vosoughi, D. Roy, S. Aral. Science 359, 1146-1151 (2018)] and a comparison of Twitter cascades of videos, pictures, news, and petitions by Goel et al. [S. Goel, A. Anderson, J. Hofman, D. J. Watts. Manage. Sci. 62, 180-196 (2016)]. Using methods that control for joint cascade statistics, we find that for false-and true-news cascades, the reported structural differences can almost entirely be explained by false-news cascades being larger. For videos, images, news, and petitions, structural differences persist when controlling for size. Studying classical models of diffusion, we then give conditions under which differences in structural properties under different models do or do not reduce to differences in size. Our findings are consistent with the mechanisms underlying true-and false news diffusion being quite similar, differing primarily in the basic infectiousness of their spreading process.