Modeling cyber rumor spreading over mobile social networks: A compartment approach

By incorporating the spreading characteristics of cyber rumors over mobile social networks, we newly develop a dynamic system to model rumor spreading dynamics by the compartment method. Specifically, a couple of a user and an attached device is viewed as a node, and all network nodes are separated into four compartments: Rumor-Neutral, Rumor-Received, Rumor-Believed and Rumor-Denied. Some transition parameters among these groups are introduced. Additionally, the role of memory, user's ability to distinguish the rumors and rumor-denier's behavior of refuting rumors are also incorporated. The stability of the equilibria of the model system is addressed, and the influence of model parameters upon the threshold is analyzed. Finally, numerical simulations illustrate the theoretical results, and also motivate us to propose suitable measures to control cyber rumor spreading by properly adjusting the parameter values. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.