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Fake News in Social Networks

Author

Listed:
  • Christoph Aymanns

    (London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - London School of Economics; University of St. Gallen - School of Finance)

  • Jakob Foerster

    (University of Oxford)

  • Co-Pierre Georg

    (University of Cape Town; Deutsche Bundesbank)

  • Matthias Weber

    (University of St. Gallen - School of Finance; Swiss Finance Institute)

Abstract

We propose multi-agent reinforcement learning as a new method for modeling fake news in social networks. This method allows us to model human behavior in social networks both in unaccustomed populations and in populations that have adapted to the presence of fake news. In particular the latter is challenging for existing methods. We find that a fake-news attack is more effective if it targets highly connected people and people with weaker private information. Attacks are more effective when the disinformation is spread across several agents than when the disinformation is concentrated with more intensity on fewer agents. Furthermore, fake news spread less well in balanced networks than in clustered networks. We test a part of these findings in a human-subject experiment. The experimental evidence provides support for the predictions from the model. This suggests that our model is suitable to analyze the spread of fake news in social networks.

Suggested Citation

  • Christoph Aymanns & Jakob Foerster & Co-Pierre Georg & Matthias Weber, 2022. "Fake News in Social Networks," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 22-58, Swiss Finance Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:chf:rpseri:rp2258
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    Cited by:

    1. Bertin Martens & Luis Aguiar & Estrella Gomez Herrera & Frank Muller, 2018. "The digital transformation of news media and the rise of disinformation and fake news," JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy 2018-02, Joint Research Centre.
    2. Andrew Cullen & Tansu Alpcan & Alexander Kalloniatis, 2025. "Game-Theoretic Analysis of Adversarial Decision Making in a Complex Socio-Physical System," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 709-728, July.
    3. Shimon Kogan & Tobias J Moskowitz & Marina Niessner, 2023. "Social Media and Financial News Manipulation," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 27(4), pages 1229-1268.
    4. Bryan Fong, 2021. "Analysing the behavioural finance impact of 'fake news' phenomena on financial markets: a representative agent model and empirical validation," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-30, December.

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