Nonequilibrium phase transitions in a racism-spreading model with interaction-driven dynamics

2026-01-27

AI Summary

This study investigates the propagation and suppression mechanisms of racist content in online social networks and their macroscopic emergent dynamics. By constructing a three-state compartmental model that integrates epidemiological dynamics with interaction-driven processes, the work introduces non-equilibrium phase transition theory—previously unexplored in this context—into the modeling of racism diffusion, identifying two racism-free absorbing states and one active state. The authors analyze fully connected networks via ordinary differential equations and employ agent-based simulations to examine Barabási–Albert scale-free and Watts–Strogatz small-world topologies. Their results systematically characterize the three steady states and delineate the phase transition boundaries, revealing the critical role of network topology in shaping these transitions and demonstrating the efficacy of statistical physics approaches in capturing macroscopic effects of digital social interactions.

Technology Category

• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Multiagent Systems: Agent-Based Simulation and Emergent Behavior

Application Category

• Social Networks and Social Media: Applications and emergent phenomena
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Models for Web evolution
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Social networks and social learning

Abstract

Racism remains a persistent societal issue, increasingly amplified by the structure and dynamics of online social networks. In this work, we propose a three-state compartmental model to study the spreading and suppression of racist content, drawing from epidemic-like dynamics and interaction-driven transitions. We analyze the model on fully-connected (homogeneous mixing) networks using a set of coupled differential equations, and on Barab\'asi-Albert (BA) scale-free and Watts-Strogatz (WS) small-world networks through agent-based simulations. The system exhibits three distinct stationary regimes: two racism-free absorbing states and one active phase with persistent racist content. We identify and characterize the phase transitions between these regimes, discuss the role of network topology, and highlight the emergence of absorbing states. Our findings illustrate how statistical physics tools can help uncover the macroscopic consequences of microscopic social interactions in digital environments.

Problem

• racism spreading
• nonequilibrium phase transitions
• absorbing states
• social networks
• interaction-driven dynamics

Innovation

• nonequilibrium phase transitions
• interaction-driven dynamics
• absorbing states
• racism-spreading model
• network topology