Echo chambers and information transmission biases in homophilic and heterophilic networks

Transitions between homophilic and heterophilic modes of cooperation

Cooperation is ubiquitous in biological and social systems. Previous studies revealed that a preference toward similar appearance promotes cooperation, a phenomenon called tag-mediated cooperation or communitarian cooperation. This effect is enhanced when a spatial structure is incorporated, because space allows agents sharing an identical tag to regroup to form locally cooperative clusters. In spatially distributed settings, one can also consider migration of organisms, which has a potential to further promote evolution of cooperation by facilitating spatial clustering. However, it has not ye…

社会重连偏好如何弥合极化社群

How Social Rewiring Preferences Bridge Polarized Communities

该研究通过计算模型探究同质性与异质性社会重连偏好对不同类型观点扩散下社群极化的影响，发现两类偏好结合可有效避免极化并促进共识。

Positive algorithmic bias cannot stop fragmentation in homophilic networks

Fragmentation, echo chambers, and their amelioration in social networks have been a growing concern in the academic and non-academic world. This paper shows how, under the assumption of homophily, echo chambers and fragmentation are system-immanent phenomena of highly flexible social networks, even under ideal conditions for heterogeneity. We achieve this by finding an analytical, network-based solution to the Schelling model and by proving that weak ties do not hinder the process. Furthermore, we derive that no level of positive algorithmic bias in the form of rewiring is capable of preventin…

Visibility of minorities in social networks

Homophily can put minority groups at a disadvantage by restricting their ability to establish links with people from a majority group. This can limit the overall visibility of minorities in the network. Building on a Barabási-Albert model variation with groups and homophily, we show how the visibility of minority groups in social networks is a function of (i) their relative group size and (ii) the presence or absence of homophilic behavior. We provide an analytical solution for this problem and demonstrate the existence of asymmetric behavior. Finally, we study the visibility of minority group…

Towards Quantifying Sampling Bias in Network Inference

Relational inference leverages relationships between entities and links in a network to infer information about the network from a small sample. This method is often used when global information about the network is not available or difficult to obtain. However, how reliable is inference from a small labelled sample? How should the network be sampled, and what effect does it have on inference error? How does the structure of the network impact the sampling strategy? We address these questions by systematically examining how network sampling strategy and sample size affect accuracy of relationa…

复杂网络上的党派选民模型：局部有序动力学

Partisan voter model on complex networks: Dynamics of local ordering

研究复杂网络上党派选民模型的局部有序过程，通过配对近似分析无关联随机网络，并探讨偏好依赖网络中的同配/异配连接对稳态的影响。