This paper studies a model for describing opinions’ evolution in a community linked by microblogging directed network systems. The network can evolve in time by means of the creation and the deletion of some connections. When a connexion is created, the individuals have access to the whole history of posts written by the corresponding author and, when a connexion is destroyed, all the posts written by the corresponding author become invisible. The agents’ opinions are described by a set of continuous opinion variables in the closed interval Ω=[−1,1]. They represent the agreement (or disagreement) of the corresponding agent with respect to a binary question (such as a referendum or an election with two candidates). The model takes into account the effects on public opinion caused by the sign and the intensity of the initial opinions of the agents, their activity in microblogging platforms the presence of leaders and the possible manipulations of the visibility of the posts by the microblogging platform owner. The model is written as a system of integro-differential equations and simulated by using a Runge–Kutta method. We show that hidden manipulation can have an important impact on the public opinion formation and that very mild interventions of the network owner may induce major effects on the population. In our simulations, the effect of hidden manipulation is shown to be more efficient in driving the public opinion than the action of a leader, in the case of bounded confidence models and for short-time intervals.

中文翻译：

---

微博平台中隐藏意见操纵的影响

本文研究了一个模型，用于描述由微博定向网络系统连接的社区中的意见演变。网络可以通过一些连接的创建和删除来及时演进。当一个连接被创建时，个人可以访问通讯作者所写帖子的整个历史，当一个连接被破坏时，通讯作者所写的所有帖子都变得不可见。代理人的意见由一组在闭区间内的连续意见变量描述Ω=[-1,1]. 它们代表相应代理对二元问题（例如全民投票或有两名候选人的选举）的同意（或不同意）。该模型考虑了代理人最初意见的标志和强度、他们在微博平台上的活动、领导者的存在以及微博平台所有者可能对帖子的可见性进行的操纵对公众舆论的影响。该模型被编写为一个积分微分方程系统，并使用 Runge-Kutta 方法进行模拟。我们表明，隐藏的操纵可以对舆论形成产生重要影响，并且网络所有者的非常温和的干预可能会对人口产生重大影响。在我们的模拟中，