Related papers: BOTTER: A framework to analyze social bots in Twit…
Bots, software-controlled accounts that operate on social media, have been used to manipulate and deceive. We studied the characteristics and activity of bots around major political events, including elections in various countries. In this…
Computational propaganda deploys social or political bots to try to shape, steer and manipulate online public discussions and influence decisions. Collective behaviour of populations of social bots has not been yet widely studied, though…
A number of organizations ranging from terrorist groups such as ISIS to politicians and nation states reportedly conduct explicit campaigns to influence opinion on social media, posing a risk to democratic processes. There is thus a growing…
The impact of online social media on societal events and institutions is profound; and with the rapid increases in user uptake, we are just starting to understand its ramifications. Social scientists and practitioners who model online…
Online social networks have dramatically altered the landscape of public discourse, creating both opportunities for enhanced civic participation and risks of deepening social divisions. Prevalent approaches to studying online polarization…
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…
Information extracted from social media streams has been leveraged to forecast the outcome of a large number of real-world events, from political elections to stock market fluctuations. An increasing amount of studies demonstrates how the…
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…
A growing suite of research illustrates the negative impact of social media bots in amplifying harmful information with widespread social implications. Social bot detection algorithms have been developed to help identify these bot agents…
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…
Bots have become increasingly prevalent in the digital sphere and have taken up a proactive role in shaping democratic processes. While previous studies have focused on their influence at the individual level, their potential macro-level…
Large-scale manipulations on social media have two important characteristics: (i) use of propaganda to influence others, and (ii) adoption of coordinated behavior to spread it and to amplify its impact. Despite the connection between them,…
Twitter bots are automatic programs operated by malicious actors to manipulate public opinion and spread misinformation. Research efforts have been made to automatically identify bots based on texts and networks on social media. Existing…
Social media platforms continue to struggle with the growing presence of social bots-automated accounts that can influence public opinion and facilitate the spread of disinformation. Over time, these social bots have advanced significantly,…
The rise in popularity of Twitter has led to a debate on its impact on public opinions. The optimists foresee an increase in online participation and democratization due to social media's personal and interactive nature. Cyber-pessimists,…
Twitter bot detection has become a crucial task in efforts to combat online misinformation, mitigate election interference, and curb malicious propaganda. However, advanced Twitter bots often attempt to mimic the characteristics of genuine…
The presence and complexity of political Twitter bots has increased in recent years, making it a very difficult task to recognize these accounts from real, human users. We intended to provide an answer to the following question: are…
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,…
Our work represents another step into the detection and prevention of these ever-more present political manipulation efforts. We, therefore, start by focusing on understanding what the state-of-the-art approaches lack -- since the problem…
Social networking and micro-blogging services, such as Twitter, play an important role in sharing digital information. Despite the popularity and usefulness of social media, they are regularly abused by corrupt users. One of these nefarious…