A rejoinder model for the population dynamics of the spread of two interacting pieces of information

Abstract

Information warfare requires more attention as competing interests get escalated by the spread of information on various Internet-based social media platforms in recent times. In this work, we construct and analyze a mathematical model with a system of ordinary differential equations to consider how two interacting pieces of information, where the first one is incomplete and misleading while the second one is corrective of the first, evolve with time in an online population. The counter and correctional information is the rejoinder. Human psychological and sociological attributes like disbelief in the rejoinder and increased tendency to keep spreading the misleading information even after knowing the correct one are factored into our model. We find that in correcting a misleading piece of information that is already spreading within a population, the rejoinder has to be released early enough within a certain time range. The findings can help us appreciate the impact of misinformation on the society and promote information literacy at optimal cost.