论文标题
平台下的社会学习影响:共识和持续分歧
Social Learning under Platform Influence: Consensus and Persistent Disagreement
论文作者
论文摘要
个人越来越多地依靠社交网络平台来形成意见。但是,这些平台通常旨在最大化参与度,这可能与社会善良不符。在本文中,我们介绍了一种意见动力学模型,其中代理在社交网络中连接,并根据邻居的意见以及平台显示的内容来更新他们的意见。我们专注于具有两个块的随机块模型,其中不同块中个人的初始意见不同。我们证明,对于大型且密集的网络,通过简单的两种代理系统可以很好地近似此类网络中的意见动力学轨迹。后者接受了可易处理的分析分析,我们利用这些分析来提供有趣的见解,以了解平台对我们原始的两个块模型中社会学习结果的影响。具体而言,通过使用我们的近似结果,我们表明代理商的意见大致融合到某些有限的意见,这是:所有代理人同意的共识,或者持续分歧,而代理人的意见有所不同。我们发现,当平台很弱并且具有不同初始意见的代理之间存在高数量的连接时,可能会达成共识均衡。在这种情况下,即使出现持续的分歧平衡,这种平衡的极化,即分歧的程度也很低。当平台很强时,持续的分歧平衡可能会且平衡极化很高。中等平台通常会导致与中度化的持续分歧平衡。我们分析了初始极化对共识的影响,并探讨了各种扩展,包括三个块随机模型以及初始意见与代理的连接概率之间的相关性。
Individuals increasingly rely on social networking platforms to form opinions. However, these platforms typically aim to maximize engagement, which may not align with social good. In this paper, we introduce an opinion dynamics model where agents are connected in a social network, and update their opinions based on their neighbors' opinions and on the content shown to them by the platform. We focus on a stochastic block model with two blocks, where the initial opinions of the individuals in different blocks are different. We prove that for large and dense enough networks the trajectory of opinion dynamics in such networks can be approximated well by a simple two-agent system. The latter admits tractable analytical analysis, which we leverage to provide interesting insights into the platform's impact on the social learning outcome in our original two-block model. Specifically, by using our approximation result, we show that agents' opinions approximately converge to some limiting opinion, which is either: consensus, where all agents agree, or persistent disagreement, where agents' opinions differ. We find that when the platform is weak and there is a high number of connections between agents with different initial opinions, a consensus equilibrium is likely. In this case, even if a persistent disagreement equilibrium arises, the polarization in this equilibrium, i.e., the degree of disagreement, is low. When the platform is strong, a persistent disagreement equilibrium is likely and the equilibrium polarization is high. A moderate platform typically leads to a persistent disagreement equilibrium with moderate polarization. We analyze the effect of initial polarization on consensus and explore various extensions including a three block stochastic model and a correlation between initial opinions and agents' connection probabilities.