Effects of Controllable Facilitators on Social Media: Simulation Analysis Using Generalized Metanorms Games

Do we have options to encourage users to continue participating in social media? Users can retrieve information in social media without posting articles and/or comments. Thus, information on the media is regarded as a public good, and media managers must be concerned with the free-riding problem. By installing controllable agents, we analyze the evolution of cooperation in an extended version of the Metanorms Game that describes the communication carried out in specific social media and issues both rewards for cooperation and punishments for noncooperation. From the results of our agent-based simulation, the rewards for cooperation and the rewards for rewards given by others clearly encourage cooperation. Consequently, we clarify that cooperative behaviors are dominant when the benefits of cooperation exceed the costs of rewarding other users. The effects of controllable agents on the evolution of cooperation depend on their types. Whereas the existence of agents who are always cooperating and rewarding cooperators promotes cooperation, agents who are rewarding cooperators without cooperating discourages cooperation. We believe that understanding such mechanisms will be very beneficial when managers make social media policies and decide how to encourage such media.