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Social bots remain a major vector for spreading disinformation on social media and a menace to the public. Despite the progress made in developing multiple sophisticated social bot detection algorithms and tools, bot detection remains a…
For more than a decade now, academicians and online platform administrators have been studying solutions to the problem of bot detection. Bots are computer algorithms whose use is far from being benign: malicious bots are purposely created…
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…
We say that a population is perfectly polarized when divided in two groups of the same size and opposite opinions. In this paper, we propose a methodology to study and measure the emergence of polarization from social interactions. We begin…
During the 2016 US elections Twitter experienced unprecedented levels of propaganda and fake news through the collaboration of bots and hired persons, the ramifications of which are still being debated. This work proposes an approach to…
Social bots play a significant role in many online social networks (OSN) as they imitate human behavior. This fact raises difficult questions about their capabilities and potential risks. Given the recent advances in Generative AI (GenAI),…
The year 2020 will be remembered for two events of global significance: the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. In this chapter, we summarize recent studies using large public Twitter data sets on these issues. We have…
We consider the problem of identifying coordinated influence campaigns conducted by automated agents or bots in a social network. We study several different Twitter datasets which contain such campaigns and find that the bots exhibit…
Social media platforms can expose influential trends in many aspects of everyday life. However, the movements they represent can be contaminated by disinformation. Social bots are one of the significant sources of disinformation in social…
One of the hallmarks of a free and fair society is the ability to conduct a peaceful and seamless transfer of power from one leader to another. Democratically, this is measured in a citizen population's trust in the electoral system of…
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…
Socialbots are intelligent software controlling all the behavior of fake accounts in an online social network. They use artificial intelligence techniques to pass themselves off as human social media users. Socialbots exploit user trust to…
Online Social Networks have revolutionized how we consume and share information, but they have also led to a proliferation of content not always reliable and accurate. One particular type of social accounts is known to promote unreputable…
Recent accounts from researchers, journalists, as well as federal investigators, reached a unanimous conclusion: social media are systematically exploited to manipulate and alter public opinion. Some disinformation campaigns have been…
While social media are a key source of data for computational social science, their ease of manipulation by malicious actors threatens the integrity of online information exchanges and their analysis. In this Chapter, we focus on malicious…
This exploratory study examines the strategies of social bots on Twitter that were retweeted following a mass shooting event. Using a case study method to frame our work, we collected over seven million tweets during a one-month period…
Automated social agents, or bots, are increasingly becoming a problem on social media platforms. There is a growing body of literature and multiple tools to aid in the detection of such agents on online social networking platforms. We…
Online Social Networks represent a novel opportunity for political campaigns, revolutionising the paradigm of political communication. Nevertheless, many studies uncovered the presence of d/misinformation campaigns or of malicious…
Bots, simply defined as accounts controlled by automation, can be used as a weapon for online manipulation and pose a threat to the health of platforms. Researchers have studied online platforms to detect, estimate, and characterize bot…
As our reliance on social media platforms and web services increase day by day, exploiters view these platforms as an opportunity to manipulate our thoughts ad actions. These platforms have become an open playground for social bot accounts.…