The paper reviews how large language models (LLMs) are being used to model social networks, highlighting their ability to represent users, relationships, and interactions through natural language. It categorizes existing work into network generative models—split into selection‑based and interaction‑based approaches—and dynamic process models, which cover opinion dynamics, information diffusion, and rumor propagation. The survey also discusses the advantages of LLMs for realistic, context‑aware social behavior, while noting limitations such as social biases and prompt sensitivity, and outlines open research challenges and future directions.
arXiv:2510. 19299v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Can large language model (LLM) agents reproduce the complex social dynamics that characterize human online behavior -- shaped by homophily, reciprocity, and social validation -- and what memory and learning mechanisms enable such dynamics to emerge?
The paper introduces a controlled testbed to study how goal‑directed persuaders shift stances in networks of large language model agents, using real‑world ego‑network topologies. Experiments across four LLM backbones, five graph structures, and 55 policy statements show that persuasion dynamics depend on topology, competition, topic, and model prior. The study finds that direct exposure predicts stance change, peer relays have measurable influence, and that post‑text analysis alone misses important movement, highlighting the need to evaluate multi‑agent persuasion through trajectory‑level processes, belief probes, exposure provenance, and action logs.
arXiv:2606. 27539v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Social media popularity prediction aims to forecast the future reach or influence of online content from early-stage observations.
The paper introduces a digital‑twin framework that simulates opinion dynamics in real Twitter networks by assigning agents attributes such as persona, emotions, centrality, stubbornness, and influence, and using Mistral‑7B to update opinions based on memory and social exposure. Validation on COVID‑19 and U.S. election 2020 datasets shows the framework reproduces opinion trajectories, reducing prediction error by over 50% compared to classical baselines, and improves structural alignment and polarization dynamics. Ablation studies reveal that agent attributes, memory, and social exposure all contribute to predictive fidelity, with agent attributes being the most critical.
The paper evaluates deep graph generative models against traditional network science models by comparing the topological similarity of generated networks to real-world networks and their effectiveness in identifying node immunization strategies for epidemic or misinformation spread. It finds that two deep graph generative models produce synthetic networks that closely resemble real-world structural properties, enabling them to identify effective immunization strategies.
The paper proposes a Friedkin‑Johnsen based framework to identify influential users in online social networks and assess how they shape community opinion. By manipulating initial opinions in experiments, the authors show that top influencers can significantly shift overall community sentiment, and their influence extends beyond direct neighbors to second‑degree contacts. The framework is validated on a tweet dataset from the U.S. presidential election, illustrating the power of digital influencers to alter public opinion.
arXiv:2607. 03695v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large language model (LLM) agents are increasingly deployed in interacting populations, raising the question of what such populations come to believe collectively.
The studying of opinion dynamics and its propagation within social networks is crucial for addressing a wide range of challenges, including political polarization, public health, and marketing strateg...
arXiv:2608.00929v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Social dynamics encode the process in which individual network and discourse interactions aggregate into collective influence, narrative dominance...
Predicting the existence and type of links (edges) between nodes in a multi-relational graph is key for applications from social interaction prediction to knowledge relationship identification. Enhancing local features with relevant global information is crucial for accurate link prediction, yet it remains challenging.
arXiv:2606. 27201v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Event-based Temporal Graph Neural Networks (ETGNNs) have demonstrated strong performance across a wide range of applications, including social network analysis, epidemic tracing, recommender systems, and political event forecasting.
arXiv:2506. 12078v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Understanding the dynamic evolution of complex social phenomena requires both high-fidelity modeling of human behavior and large-scale simulations.