Fake News Social Influence Bot Network Analysis on Twitter Hazard Data

• In Event: 3267 - Section on Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 2. News Media & Society

Abstract

The Internet facilitates social settings where social actors can remain anonymous throughout communication. This opens up new avenues for false information to be spread, as individual social actors are not bound to their own identity, enabling artificial social actors to influence the social space. Through software robots—also colloquially known as “bots”, one can program software to mimic the behaviors of human social actors in a credible manner, allowing for the artificial inflation of support for a particular belief, idea, or agenda. Additionally, bots serve as social actors with the same capabilities of information transmission as humans, allowing for a network of bots to spread false information in a highly effective manner. The spread of false information at the hands of bot networks can have disastrous effects upon the hazard response space, as in some cases misinformation can mean the difference between life and death. The information found below is not a study in its own right, but rather preliminary findings and hypotheses drawn from these findings regarding the nature of bots in the hazard space, the influence of bot networks within the hazard space, as well as tactics employed by bot operators within the hazard space. These findings and hypotheses are the initial outcomes of an ongoing study surrounding the subject of bots within the hazard and disaster response social space, and are not wholly indicative of results of the study. The information contained below should be considered as no more than mere observations regarding the study’s preliminary findings.

Author

• Richard Edward Gardner, University of California, Irvine