Characterizing Bot Networks on Twitter: An Empirical Analysis of Contentious Issues in the Asia-Pacific

Uyheng, Joshua; Carley, Kathleen M.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-21741-9_16

Cited by 36 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Against the backdrop of the pandemic, both contexts face significant challenges at controlling outbreaks, and have extensively documented cases of online disinformation disrupting conversation in the public sphere [4,9,16,62,78,88]. Our findings point to crucial evidence of social conflicts exacerbated under these conditions, both organically as well as inorganically.…”

Section: Toward Global Computational Social Sciencementioning

confidence: 62%

“…These notions correspond to the positive maneuvers summarized as backing, boosting, bridging, and building (B); and negative maneuvers given by neutralizing, nuking, narrowing, and neglecting (N). Such maneuvers are instrumentalized toward diverse ends, including manipulating public opinion and exacerbating political unrest [16,43,78,78].…”

Section: Hate Speech In Bot-driven Information Maneuversmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Known operations, for example, have stoked online conflicts in relation to wider racial divisions [4,89]. Meanwhile, in the Philippines, international tensions with China may also play a role in shaping racially charged online hate [58,78]. However, in view of well-documented evidence that disinformation in the Philippines is primarily domestic and state-sponsored, information maneuvers may also play a role in primarily political conflicts [62,79].…”

Section: Global Hate During the Pandemic: The United States And The Pmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Adopting a tiered structure, BotHunter progressively leverages account information, network information, and dynamic features to generate performant bot predictions. It has been successfully used to understand various domestic and international influence campaigns [14,16,78,80].…”

Section: Bot Predictionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Table 2 suggests that levels of bot activity and hate speech are comparable across the two contexts. Using a standard 80% BotHunter threshold [78,79], we note that while a larger proportion of tweets are produced by bots in the US dataset, we captured more bot tweets in raw numbers in the Philippine dataset. Conversely, while a larger number of bot users were found in raw numbers in the US, the Philippines had a greater proportion of bot users.…”

Section: Overview Of Bot and Hate Scoresmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bots and online hate during the COVID-19 pandemic: case studies in the United States and the Philippines

Uyheng

Carley

2020

J Comput Soc Sc

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Online hate speech represents a serious problem exacerbated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Although often anchored in real-world social divisions, hate speech in cyberspace may also be fueled inorganically by inauthentic actors like social bots. This work presents and employs a methodological pipeline for assessing the links between hate speech and bot-driven activity through the lens of social cybersecurity. Using a combination of machine learning and network science tools, we empirically characterize Twitter conversations about the pandemic in the United States and the Philippines. Our integrated analysis reveals idiosyncratic relationships between bots and hate speech across datasets, highlighting different network dynamics of racially charged toxicity in the US and political conflicts in the Philippines. Most crucially, we discover that bot activity is linked to higher hate in both countries, especially in communities which are denser and more isolated from others. We discuss several insights for probing issues of online hate speech and coordinated disinformation, especially through a global approach to computational social science.

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Section: Toward Global Computational Social Sciencementioning

confidence: 62%

Section: Hate Speech In Bot-driven Information Maneuversmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Global Hate During the Pandemic: The United States And The Pmentioning

confidence: 99%