Rumor spreading model with consideration of forgetting mechanism: A case of online blogging LiveJournal

Rumor is an important form of social interaction, and its spreading has a significant impact on people’s lives. In the age of Web, people are using electronic media more frequently than ever before, and blog has become one of the main online social interactions. Therefore, it is essential to learn the evolution mechanism of rumor spreading on homogeneous network in consideration of the forgetting mechanism of spreaders. Here we study a rumor spreading model on an online social blogging platform called LiveJournal. In comparison with the Susceptible–Infected–Removed (SIR) model, we provide a more detailed and realistic description of rumor spreading process with combination of forgetting mechanism and the SIR model of epidemics. A mathematical model has been presented and numerical solutions of the model were used to analyze the impact factors of rumor spreading, such as the average degree, forgetting rate and stifling rate. Our results show that there exist a threshold of the average degree of LiveJournal and above which the influence of rumor reaches saturation. Forgetting mechanism and stifling rate exert great influence on rumor spreading on online social network. The analysis results can guide people’s behaviors in view of the theoretical and practical aspects.