Modelling Misinformation Spread: The Role of Network Density in Diverse Social Structures
October 26, 2025

Soroush Karimi, Marcos Oliveira, and Diogo Pacheco

Abstract

Understanding the relationship between network features and misinformation propagation is crucial for mitigating the spread of false information. Here, we investigate how network density and segregation affect the dissemination of misinformation using a susceptible-infectious-recovered framework. We find that a higher density consistently increases the proportion of misinformation believers. In segregated networks, our results reveal that minorities affect the majority: denser minority groups increase the number of believers in the majority, demonstrating how the structure of a segregated minority can influence misinformation dynamics within the majority group.

Advances in Social Simulation (ESSA 2021), pp. 223–230 (Springer, 2025).

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[arXiv]
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Cite this paper

@incollection{karimi2025misinformation,
  author={Karimi, Soroush and Oliveira, Marcos and Pacheco, Diogo},
  title={Modelling Misinformation Spread: The Role of Network Density in Diverse Social Structures},
  editor={Czupryna, Marcin and Kamiński, Bogumił and Verhagen, Harko},
  booktitle={Advances in Social Simulation},
  series={Springer Proceedings in Complexity},
  publisher={Springer Nature Switzerland},
  pages={223--230},
  year={2025},
  ISBN={9783031917820},
  DOI={10.1007/978-3-031-91782-0_16},
  url={https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-91782-0_16}
}