Simulating rumor spreading and rebuttal strategy with rebuttal forgetting: An agent-based modeling approach

Abstract

Rumor is a typical social psychological phenomenon, and forgetting is a universal psychological trait. Exploring the role of forgetting will improve the understanding of rumor spreading and its control. Based on the classical SIR epidemic framework, the conceptual model of rumor spreading and rebuttal strategy is proposed with consideration of forgetting, and the mathematical model at the individual level is constructed from a competitive innovation diffusion perspective. A Java-based Agent-based Modeling approach is adopted to conduct comprehensive simulation experiments. Results indicate that both rebuttal strategy and rebuttal forgetting would affect the process and the result of rumor spreading and control, and complex interactions exist among different factors. Although the influence of control strategy is dominant in most cases, more active control might be not optimal in extreme cases because of the moderation of forgetting, the nonlinearity of influence increases the control challenge.