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Trust and manipulation in social networks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2016

MANUEL FÖRSTER Open the ORCID record for MANUEL FÖRSTER [Opens in a new window] ,
ANA MAULEON  and
VINCENT J. VANNETELBOSCH
MANUEL FÖRSTER
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Hamburg, Germany (e-mail: manuel.foerster@wiso.uni-hamburg.de)
ANA MAULEON
Affiliation:
CEREC, Saint-Louis University – Brussels CORE, University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium (e-mail: ana.mauleon@usaintlouis.be, vincent.vannetelbosch@uclouvain.be)
VINCENT J. VANNETELBOSCH
Affiliation:
CEREC, Saint-Louis University – Brussels CORE, University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium (e-mail: ana.mauleon@usaintlouis.be, vincent.vannetelbosch@uclouvain.be)
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Abstract

We investigate the role of manipulation in boundedly rational opinion dynamics. Agents are subject to persuasion bias and repeatedly communicate with their neighbors in a social network. They can exert effort to manipulate trust in the opinions of others in their favor and update their opinions about some issue of common interest by taking weighted averages of neighbors' opinions. We show that manipulation can connect a segregated society and thus lead to mutual consensus. Second, we show that manipulation fosters opinion leadership; and surprisingly agents with low trust in their own opinion might get more influential even by being manipulated. Finally, comparative simulations reveal that manipulation is beneficial to information aggregation when preferences and abilities for manipulation are homogeneous, but detrimental in case abilities are concentrated at few powerful agents.

Keywords

social networkstrustmanipulationpersuasion biasopinion leadershipconsensusmisinformation
Type
Research Article
Information
Network Science , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , June 2016 , pp. 216 - 243
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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