Related papers: How Do Social Bots Participate in Misinformation S…
The massive spread of digital misinformation has been identified as a major global risk and has been alleged to influence elections and threaten democracies. Communication, cognitive, social, and computer scientists are engaged in efforts…
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…
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…
Society's reliance on social media as a primary source of news has spawned a renewed focus on the spread of misinformation. In this work, we identify the differences in how social media accounts identified as bots react to news sources of…
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…
In this work we study how pervasive is the presence of disinformation in the Italian debate around immigration on Twitter and the role of automated accounts in the diffusion of such content. By characterising the Twitter users with an…
Thanks to platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, people can know facts and events that otherwise would have been silenced. However, social media significantly contribute also to fast spreading biased and false news while targeting specific…
Research on social bots aims at advancing knowledge and providing solutions to one of the most debated forms of online manipulation. Yet, social bot research is plagued by widespread biases, hyped results, and misconceptions that set the…
Social Media are evolving as a pervasive source of news able to reach a larger audience through their spreading power. The main drawback is given by the presence of malicious accounts, known as social bots, which are often used to diffuse…
Bots have been playing a crucial role in online platform ecosystems, as efficient and automatic tools to generate content and diffuse information to the social media human population. In this chapter, we will discuss the role of social bots…
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.…
COVID-19 impacted every part of the world, although the misinformation about the outbreak traveled faster than the virus. Misinformation spread through online social networks (OSN) often misled people from following correct medical…
The boom of online social media and microblogging platforms has rapidly alter the way we consume news and exchange opinions. Even though considerable efforts try to recommend various contents to users, loss of information diversity and the…
The idea that social media platforms like Twitter are inhabited by vast numbers of social bots has become widely accepted in recent years. Social bots are assumed to be automated social media accounts operated by malicious actors with the…
The phenomenon of misinformation spreading in social media has developed a new form of active citizens who focus on tackling the problem by refuting posts that might contain misinformation. Automatically identifying and characterizing the…
In the human-bot symbiotic information ecosystem, social bots play key roles in spreading and correcting disinformation. Understanding their influence is essential for risk control and better governance. However, current studies often rely…
Recent studies have confirmed a growing trend, especially among youngsters, of using Online Social Media as favourite information platform at the expense of traditional mass media. Indeed, they can easily reach a wide audience at a high…
This work examines the influence of misinformation and the role of AI agents, called bots, on social network platforms. To quantify the impact of misinformation, it proposes two new metrics based on attributes of tweet engagement and user…
Bots are automated social media users that can be used to amplify (mis)information and sow harmful discourse. In order to effectively influence users, bots can be generated to reproduce human user behavior. Indeed, people tend to trust…
Misinformation poses a growing global threat to institutional trust, democratic stability, and public decision-making. While prior research has often portrayed social media as a channel for spreading falsehoods, less is known about the…