English

Duplicating Deceit: Inauthentic Behavior Among Indian Misinformation Duplicators on X/Twitter

Social and Information Networks 2025-07-21 v1

Abstract

This paper investigates inauthentic duplication on social media, where multiple accounts share identical misinformation tweets. Leveraging a dataset of misinformation verified by AltNews, an Indian fact-checking organization, we analyze over 12 million posts from 5,493 accounts known to have duplicated such content. Contrary to common assumptions that bots are primarily responsible for spreading false information, fewer than 1\% of these accounts exhibit bot-like behavior. We present TweeXster, a framework for detecting and analyzing duplication campaigns, revealing clusters of accounts involved in repeated and sometimes revived dissemination of false or abusive content.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2507.13636,
  title  = {Duplicating Deceit: Inauthentic Behavior Among Indian Misinformation Duplicators on X/Twitter},
  author = {Ashfaq Ali Shafin and Bogdan Carbunar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.13636},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

8 pages, 1 figure, accepted in 17th International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM 2025)