Fake news propagation and detection: A sequential model
Y Papanastasiou - Management Science, 2020 - pubsonline.informs.org
In the wake of the 2016 US presidential election, social-media platforms are facing
increasing pressure to combat the propagation of “fake news”(ie, articles whose content is
fabricated). Motivated by recent attempts in this direction, we consider the problem faced by
a social-media platform that is observing the sharing actions of a sequence of rational
agents and is dynamically choosing whether to conduct an inspection (ie, a “fact-check”) of
an article whose validity is ex ante unknown. We first characterize the agents' inspection and …
increasing pressure to combat the propagation of “fake news”(ie, articles whose content is
fabricated). Motivated by recent attempts in this direction, we consider the problem faced by
a social-media platform that is observing the sharing actions of a sequence of rational
agents and is dynamically choosing whether to conduct an inspection (ie, a “fact-check”) of
an article whose validity is ex ante unknown. We first characterize the agents' inspection and …