The spreading dynamics of rumors in social media under the anti-silence spiral effect

Nowadays, social media has also become a breeding ground for online rumors. The huge number of users on various social media platforms, as well as the characteristics of instantaneity and openness, make the spread of rumors much wider and faster than the real social network. Thus, the spread of rumors on social media platforms has a great impact on people's lives and social stability. Based on the classic SIR model and the theory of "Spiral of Anti-silence", this paper establishes a rumor spreading model in social media with debunking behavior, and then analyzes the existence and stability of rumor-free equilibrium and rumor-existence equilibrium in the model, as well as calculates the basic reproduction number on rumor spreading. Furthermore, this paper simulates the influence of parameter changes on rumor spreading by MATLAB, analyzes the sensitivity of some parameters in this model, and then analyzes and validates the proposed model by practical cases. Finally, some suggestions are put forward in order to control the spread of rumors effectively. © 2020, Editorial Board of Journal of Systems Engineering Society of China. All right reserved.