Related papers: BotOrNot: A System to Evaluate Social Bots
Twitter, as one of the most popular social networks, provides a platform for communication and online discourse. Unfortunately, it has also become a target for bots and fake accounts, resulting in the spread of false information and…
Twitter is now an established and a widely popular news medium. Be it normal banter or a discussion on high impact events like Boston marathon blasts, February 2014 US Icestorm, etc., people use Twitter to get updates. Twitter bots have…
This study presents a review of research on social media bot detection. Social media bots are used by political and criminal actors for mass distribution of political messages, as well as rumors, conspiracy theories, and other forms of…
Social media platforms attempting to curb abuse and misinformation have been accused of political bias. We deploy neutral social bots who start following different news sources on Twitter, and track them to probe distinct biases emerging…
The omnipresent COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to a parallel spreading of misinformation, also referred to as an Infodemic. Consequently, social media have become targets for the application of social bots, that is, algorithms that mimic human…
In recent years, Twitter has seen a proliferation of automated accounts or bots that send spam, offer clickbait, compromise security using malware, and attempt to skew public opinion. Previous research estimates that around 9% to 17% of…
As popular tools for spreading spam and malware, Sybils (or fake accounts) pose a serious threat to online communities such as Online Social Networks (OSNs). Today, sophisticated attackers are creating realistic Sybils that effectively…
Automated social media accounts, known as bots, have been shown to spread disinformation and manipulate online discussions. We study the behavior of retweet bots on Twitter during the first impeachment of U.S. President Donald Trump. We…
The Web contains several social media platforms for discussion, exchange of ideas, and content publishing. These platforms are used by people, but also by distributed agents known as bots. Although bots have existed for decades, with many…
With the increasing use of social media data for health-related research, the credibility of the information from this source has been questioned as the posts may originate from automated accounts or "bots". While automatic bot detection…
Societies are complex systems which tend to polarize into sub-groups of individuals with dramatically opposite perspectives. This phenomenon is reflected -- and often amplified -- in online social networks where, however, humans are no more…
As social media has permeated large parts of the population it simultaneously has become a way to reach many people e.g. with political messages. One way to efficiently reach those people is the application of automated computer programs…
Influential users have great potential for accelerating information dissemination and acquisition on Twitter. How to measure the influence of Twitter users has attracted significant academic and industrial attention. Existing influential…
Bot Detection is an essential asset in a period where Online Social Networks(OSN) is a part of our lives. This task becomes more relevant in crises, as the Covid-19 pandemic, where there is an incipient risk of proliferation of social bots,…
Social media platforms provide an ideal environment to spread misinformation, where social bots can accelerate the spread. This paper explores the interplay between social bots and misinformation on the Sina Weibo platform. We construct a…
Online Social Networks (OSNs) are a cornerstone in modern society, serving as platforms for diverse content consumption by millions of users each day. However, the challenge of ensuring the accuracy of information shared on these platforms…
An essential topic in online social network security is how to accurately detect bot accounts and relieve their harmful impacts (e.g., misinformation, rumor, and spam) on genuine users. Based on a real-world data set, we construct…
It is known that many Twitter users are bots, which are accounts controlled and sometimes created by computers. Twitter bots can send spam tweets, manipulate public opinion and be used for online fraud. Here we report the discovery,…
Software bots have attracted increasing interest and popularity in both research and society. Their contributions span automation, digital twins, game characters with conscious-like behavior, and social media. However, there is still a lack…
This paper presents a study on the growing threat of "sleeper social bots," AI-driven social bots in the political landscape, created to spread disinformation and manipulate public opinion. We based the name sleeper social bots on their…