Related papers: Socialbots whitewashing contested elections; a cas…
Bots, social media accounts controlled by software rather than by humans, have recently been under the spotlight for their association with various forms of online manipulation. To date, much work has focused on social bot detection, but…
Social bots are currently regarded an influential but also somewhat mysterious factor in public discourse and opinion making. They are considered to be capable of massively distributing propaganda in social and online media and their…
Social bots can affect online communication among humans. We study this phenomenon by focusing on #YaMeCanse, the most active protest hashtag in the history of Twitter in Mexico. Accounts using the hashtag are classified using the BotOrNot…
A very large number of people use Online Social Networks daily. Such platforms thus become attractive targets for agents that seek to gain access to the attention of large audiences, and influence perceptions or opinions. Botnets,…
This exploratory study used the R Statistical Software to perform Monte Carlo simulation of time maps, which characterize events based on the elapsed time since the last event and the time that will transpire until the next event, and…
Following the 2016 US presidential election, there has been an increased focus on politically-motivated manipulation of mass-user behavior on social media platforms. Since a large volume of political discussion occurs on these platforms,…
We present a method to reconstruct networks of socialbots given minimal input. Then we use Kernel Density Estimates of Botometer scores from 47,000 social networking accounts to find clusters of automated accounts, discovering over 5,000…
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…
Bots have been in the spotlight for many social media studies, for they have been observed to be participating in the manipulation of information and opinions on social media. These studies analyzed the activity and influence of bots in a…
While most online social media accounts are controlled by humans, these platforms also host automated agents called social bots or sybil accounts. Recent literature reported on cases of social bots imitating humans to manipulate…
Fake news are affecting a large proportion of the population even becoming a danger to the society. Mostly, this disinformation flow take place through Internet. Being aware of that problem, in this work we propose a synthetic indicator…
On the morning of November 9th 2016, the world woke up to the shocking outcome of the US Presidential elections: Donald Trump was the 45th President of the United States of America. An unexpected event that still has tremendous consequences…
Amidst widespread reports of digital influence operations during major elections, policymakers, scholars, and journalists have become increasingly interested in the political impact of social media 'bots.' Most recently, platform companies…
Malicious Twitter bots are detrimental to public discourse on social media. Past studies have looked at spammers, fake followers, and astroturfing bots, but retweet bots, which artificially inflate content, are not well understood. In this…
The popularity of social media platforms such as Twitter has led to the proliferation of automated bots, creating both opportunities and challenges in information dissemination, user engagements, and quality of services. Past works on…
The increased relevance of social media in our daily life has been accompanied by efforts to manipulate online conversations and opinions. Deceptive social bots -- automated or semi-automated accounts designed to impersonate humans -- have…
With the increasing use of the Internet and mobile devices, social networks are becoming the most used media to communicate citizens' ideas and thoughts. This information is very useful to identify communities with common ideas based on…
Online social networks (OSNs) are increasingly threatened by social bots which are software-controlled OSN accounts that mimic human users with malicious intentions. A social botnet refers to a group of social bots under the control of a…
Twitter bot detection is vital in combating misinformation and safeguarding the integrity of social media discourse. While malicious bots are becoming more and more sophisticated and personalized, standard bot detection approaches are still…
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…