Network imitation sustains misinformation despite a corrective factual field

Abstract

Social influence can preserve errors that individuals would correct on their own. We study this possibility by representing opinions as directions in a semantic space. The formulation connects established models of personal preference, social agreement, and external influence. A common factual signal pulls every opinion toward a reference direction, individuals remain attached to their initial preferences, and connected individuals imitate one another. When the factual signal exceeds the preference strength, each isolated individual corrects, apart from an exactly opposite initial opinion. We prove that every finite undirected network then has a unique state of minimum total energy in which all opinions favor the factual direction. This state is the best overall compromise between factual alignment, personal preferences, and agreement with neighbors. Yet on a ring with planar opinions, sufficiently strong imitation can trap the same individuals in a different stable state that retains misinformation. We prove convergence to that state from the specified initial opinions. We also derive a network spectral condition that excludes competing stable states, and show how an additional semantic direction can destabilize the constructed planar pattern. Numerical maps reveal persistent error, history dependence, and coexisting outcomes, while comparisons across networks show differences that a single spectral scale does not remove. These results distinguish individual correctability from collective correction and identify how attractive social influence can obstruct the latter.