Rich Get Richer Pattern in the US
The rich-get-richer rule predicts that as something gains popularity, or gets “richer”, its growth rate will increase accordingly so that popularity increases exponentially. As such, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer over time. This phenomenon can be seen in the modern day US. Consider the large American corporations such as Goldman […]
False Information Cascades in Facebook’s Newsfeed
Within hours of the presidential election being called in favor of Donald J. Trump, many people immediately laid blame on Facebook for spreading misinformation regarding the candidates and the race in general. This problem had its roots months ago, when Facebook’s human editors in charge of the Trending topics section were accused of suppressing conservative […]
The Spread of Technology in Bangladesh
This past spring, The World Bank released a report that despite the rapid spread of new digital technologies; the digital dividends have lagged behind. This is particularly interesting because it is not often that product adoption spikes so drastically but does not even trickle down to reach other social classes within a society. “Bangladesh has […]
Information Cascades and Misinformation on Facebook
Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/14/technology/facebook-is-said-to-question-its-influence-in-election.html?ref=business http://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2016/ Since last week’s election, people have been desperately searching for reasons why the frontrunner Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump despite being heavily favored throughout the race. One particularly compelling one is based on the fact that 44% of adults get news from Facebook. This fact alone makes sense considering Facebook […]
Facebook, in Cross Hairs After Election, Is Said to Question Its Influence
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/14/technology/facebook-is-said-to-question-its-influence-in-election.html?_r=0 As we have learned from class, people in a network are influenced by others in the network, whether that be for decisions or preference. People will follow the decisions of those they are connected to when they don’t have their own information, and sometimes even if they do. One recent decision that many […]
Apple and Its New Line of Products
This fall, Apple once again revealed its new line of products featuring the iPhone 7, the new Apple Watch, the new MacBook Pro, and many others. As in the past, the release of the new products was met with positive enthusiasm as well as some negative criticism. There are almost always some complaints to be […]
Information Cascades and Major Elections
http://www.dklevine.com/archive/refs4782713000000000062.pdf In class, we learned that it is possible for people to follow other’s behavior and decisions when they are connected by a network. It is possible that, through a range of social processes, networks serve to influence an individual’s choices and behavior to product massive, population-wide, collective outcomes. Information cascades have most power to […]
Information Cascades and Social Media
Information cascades takes place when people do not have enough information, and tend to make decision depending on limited information provided by not only their own observation, but also other people’s opinion. After several people give the same conclusion, the people after them will begin to ignore their own observation and give the same conclusion […]
Spam and Bayes
In class we used Bayes Theorem to establish the presence of information cascades in certain systems. It turns out Bayes Rule is widely applicable to a variety of fields, including Machine Learning. In machine learning, techniques involving the use of Bayes Theorem are called Bayesian Classifiers. Because Bayes Theorem gives us a way to reason […]
Information Cascade in Cells
Cells in a living organism require other cells to pass information through the body. A single cell can not do this on its own. In the article, “How cells sense and respond to the outside world,” scientists explore different theories about how the cascade of information works in a network of cells. At first researchers […]
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