AUTHOR=Ju Chunhua , Jiang Yihao , Bao Fuguang , Zou Bilin , Xu Chonghuan 

TITLE=Online Rumor Diffusion Model Based on Variation and Silence Phenomenon in the Context of COVID-19

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health

VOLUME=Volume 9 - 2021

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.788475

DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2021.788475

ISSN=2296-2565

ABSTRACT=In the era of mobile internet, information dissemination has made a new leap in speed and breadth. With the outbreak of the COVID-19, the COVID-19 rumor diffusion that is not limited by time and space often becomes extremely complex and fickle. It’s also normal that a piece of unsubstantiated news about COVID-19 could develop to many versions. We focus on the stagnant role and information variants in the process of rumor diffusion about COVID-19, and through the study of variability and silence in the dissemination, which combines the effects of stagnation phenomenon and information variation on the whole communication system in the circulation of rumors about COVID-19, based on the classic rumor SIR model, we introduce a new concept of "variation" and "oyster". The stability of the new model is analyzed by the mean field equation, and the threshold of COVID-19 rumor propagation is obtained later. According to the results of the simulation experiment, whether in the small world network or the scale-free network, the increase of the immure and the silent probability of the variation can effectively reduce the speed of rumor diffusion about COVID-19 and is conducive to the dissemination of the truth in the whole population. Studies have also shown that increasing the silence rate of variation can reduce COVID-19 rumor transmission more quickly than the immunization rate. The interesting discovery is that at the same time, a higher rumor infection rate can bring more rumors about COVID-19, but not always maintain a high number of the variation which could reduce rumors’ variant tendency. The more information diffuses in the social group, the more consistent the version and content of the information will be, which proves that the more adequate each individual information is, the slower and less likely rumors about COVID-19 spread. This consequence tells us that the government needs to guide the public to the truth. Announcing the true information publicly instantly could contain the COVID-19 rumor diffusion well rather than making them hidden or voiceless.