how social media influence information cascade
https://www.ft.com/content/6973e6d6-d047-11e7-9dbb-291a884dd8c6
This article talks about how technology and the election of Donald Trump cause waves of sexual harassment to be revealed in these days. It first raises the questions that why women had been comparably quite in the past about sexual harassment but start to reveal these scandals now, and the first reason it gives, which is technology, shows how social media influence the information cascade.
What social media do is that social media allow people to see the behaviors of their weak links, or even people they don’t know. Without social media, a people’s neighbor nodes mostly include his/her close friends, families and co-workers. Social media like Facebook or Twitter, however, make a people’s neighbor nodes to include more people like acquaintances. Moreover, people can also base their decisions on a stranger’s behavior just because they see that on social media. In this way, even a stranger can become one of a person’s neighbor nodes.
This explains why women had been comparably quite in the past about sexual harassment. Without social media, their neighbor nodes are very small, and when they choose whether or not to reveal the fact, they cannot see a lot of people revealing fact, so they choose not to reveal the scandal.
Now, with social media, they can see many other people revealing the truth that they’ve been sexually harassed, this increases their payoff of also telling the truth. Thus, waves of sexual harassment are revealed in these days.