Social networks, disinformation and diplomacy: a dynamic model for a current problem

Abstract

The potential of social networks for the circulation of disinformation as a strategy of diplomacy has been of great interest to the academic community, but the way in which it is propagated and modelled is still in its beginnings. This article aimed to simulate the propagation of disinformation in social networks derived from the diplomacy strategy, based on the elements of the system. The main research question that was opened up was how do the elements of disinformation derived from the social media diplomacy strategy interact to affect a susceptible population? For the design of the simulation model, system dynamics was used as the main technique in the re-search methodology in conjunction with statistical analysis. Five computational simulations were run for the adoption methods of susceptible and uninformed population, misinformation techniques and echo chamber. The model developed found that the diplomacy disinformation agent is able to spread its message efficiently through the bot outreach mechanism and only a part of the susceptible population unsubscribes to the disinformation agent’s account. Significant differences were identified in the absence of paid outreach, bots and trolls in the propagation of information, and in the variation in the timing of disinformation propagation. Consequently, the developed model allows the understanding of the problem of disinformation as a strategy of diplomacy from international rather than local dynamics, as well as the effects of the use of each element in the system.