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Showing posts from December, 2020

A two-layer network approach to Information Disorder

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attempt1 Information disorder, popularly referred to by its problematic synonym "fake news", is turning out to be a massive problem. Here I try to explain a framework with which I have been contextualizing the various aspects of the problem. I believe there are two layers of networks involved - one of information and another of people - and these two networks have interactions between and within them. I am going to use some jargon on Networks dynamics which I define in my earlier blog here . So if the jargon seems foreign, kindly read through that post first.   The two layers, separately As aforementioned, I think there are two layers of networks involved in the Information Disorder problem - The Information layer and The People layer. The Information layer - In this layer, the nodes are different pieces of information while the edges relate two pieces of information. The different pieces of information on a social network could be posts (aka tweets or threads) and com

Network Dynamics framework for Social Network problems

final Social Networks are all the rage today (in many senses of that phrase). What we once thought would democratise content creation, is now breaking democratic norms. Given the scale of the problems involved, it is becoming increasingly difficult to think of them. Here I have made a humble attempt to do so and make the case for the framework I have been using. I am only beginning to think deeply about this issue so I might be wrong about this and change my mind later but I believe there is some utility to sharing it anyways - even a wrong clock shows the right time twice a day! So here goes nothing...   Network theorists classify network dynamics into 3 categories - dynamics on networks, dynamics of networks and hybrid dynamics [1]. I believe we can use a framework with a similar classification to categorize problems relating to social networks and to keep in mind all the dynamics involved before creating solutions.   Terminology Since I have begun by throwing around some ja