Study on strategies to contain the spread of unwanted information from social media based on game theory

Abstract

Based on analysis of game theory, the paper points out that the main reason why watchdogs for cyberspace haven't achieved efficient results on the prevention and control of the spread of unwanted and false messages is that the existing strategies fail to contain the spread of false information. In order to get rid of the unfavorable state of equilibrium, netizens, network administrators, experts and supervisors should coordinate to supervise the circulation of information from social media. Regulators should be responsible for the plague of unwanted and false information. And the one-shot game of the players should be turned into the repeated game so the publishers' behavior of publishing unwanted information will be constrained, thus strategies to clean cyberspace may work efficiently.