Zealotry and Influence Maximization in the Voter Model: When to Target Zealots?

TL;DR

This paper investigates influence maximization in the voter model with zealots, revealing how optimal targeting strategies depend on budget, zealotry levels, and network degree, highlighting the importance of agent heterogeneity.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of influence strategies targeting zealots versus normal agents, considering budget constraints and agent bias levels, with analytical and numerical insights.

Findings

Large budgets favor targeting zealots, especially with low zealotry.

Low budgets or high zealotry lead to prioritizing normal agents.

Allocation strategies vary with node degree and agent bias.

Abstract

In this paper, we study influence maximization in the voter model in the presence of biased voters (or zealots) on complex networks. Under what conditions should an external controller with finite budget who aims at maximizing its influence over the system target zealots? Our analysis, based on both analytical and numerical results, shows a rich diagram of preferences and degree-dependencies of allocations to zealots and normal agents varying with the budget. We find that when we have a large budget or for low levels of zealotry, optimal strategies should give larger allocations to zealots and allocations are positively correlated with node degree. In contrast, for low budgets or highly-biased zealots, optimal strategies give higher allocations to normal agents, with some residual allocations to zealots, and allocations to both types of agents decrease with node degree. Our results emphasize that heterogeneity in agent properties strongly affects strategies for influence maximization on heterogeneous networks.