Rumor spreading model considering rumor’s attraction in heterogeneous social networks

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018. In this paper, we propose a modified susceptible-infected-removed (SIR) model with introduction of rumor’s attraction and establish corresponding mean-field equations to characterize the dynamics of SIR model on heterogeneous social networks. Then a steady-state analysis is conducted to investigate how the rumor’s attraction influences the threshold behavior and the final rumor size. Theoretical analysis and simulation results demonstrate that the rumor spreading threshold is related to the topological characteristics of underlying network and the infectivity of individual but is independent of the attraction of the rumor itself. In addition, whether a rumor spreads or not is determined by the relationship between the effective spreading rate and the spreading threshold. We also find that when a rumor’s attraction is very high, the effective spreading rate can easily reach the critical rumor spreading threshold, which leads to rumor spreading far and wide