Modeling Social Media Effect on Civil Revolutions
is the homophily effect on protests , which is explained in the previous section . This effect considers grievance levels among protesters that increase with the creation of homophily using social media . We did not consider this loop in our preliminary model . Second , one examines cops ’ violence , which has an adverse impact on the number of protesters . If there is an increase in the agent ’ s grievance level against government actions , then agents are more willing to protest . Therefore , the number of protesters who are against the government rises . To stop the protesters , the cops increase their violence level , which then affects agents ’ risk aversion . When the agents are more risk averse , they are not as eager to protest . However , the different natural characteristics of agents are of note ; they have randomly distributed grievance levels , which are set initially .
The third effect explains censorship in the communication channels , which aid agents ’ interactions . The government does not want protesters to reach each other and share demonstration information . Thus , the government attempts to restrict communication channels such as Twitter , Facebook . Through censorship , the government cuts ties between agents and their friends who are already protesting ; therefore , censorship has a negative effect on protests .
Figure 4 . Causal loop diagram of the model with effects of cops ’ violence , censorship , and homophily on protesters .
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