Immunization against the Spread of Rumors in Homogenous Networks.

Laijun Zhao,Rongbing Huang,Jiajia Wang,Rodrigo Huerta-Quintanilla

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0124978

Laijun Zhao, Rongbing Huang + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0124978

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Journal: PloS one	Publication Date: May 1, 2015
Citations: 41	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: York University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Abstract

Since most rumors are harmful, how to control the spread of such rumors is important. In this paper, we studied the process of "immunization" against rumors by modeling the process of rumor spreading and changing the termination mechanism for the spread of rumors to make the model more realistic. We derived mean-field equations to describe the dynamics of the rumor spread. By carrying out steady-state analysis, we derived the spreading threshold value that must be exceeded for the rumor to spread. We further discuss a possible strategy for immunization against rumors and obtain an immunization threshold value that represents the minimum level required to stop the rumor from spreading. Numerical simulations revealed that the average degree of the network and parameters of transformation probability significantly influence the spread of rumors. More importantly, the simulations revealed that immunizing a higher proportion of individuals is not necessarily better because of the waste of resources and the generation of unnecessary information. So the optimal immunization rate should be the immunization threshold.

Highlights

Rumors represent unproven expositions about or interpretations of news, events, or problems that are of public interest
After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011, which was initiated by an earthquake and tsunami, the Chinese public began panic buying of iodized salt due to rumors that the ingestion of salt containing iodine could prevent radiation damage and that the leakage of radioactive material had led to pollution of the sea, thereby decreasing the safety of sea salt
Supermarkets sold out of iodized salt, and many businesses seized the chance to raise the price of iodized salt, which lead to public disturbances [5]

Summary

Introduction

Rumors represent unproven expositions about or interpretations of news, events, or problems that are of public interest. They introduced a forgetting mechanism into the SIR rumor spreading model and derived the mean-field equations in complex networks. In the rumor-spread models, there are two kinds of immunization strategies.

Results

Conclusion