Social Bots and Social Media Manipulation in 2020: The Year in Review

Abstract

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 three primary objectives. First, we delineate epistemological and practical considerations when combining the traditions of computational research and social science research. A sensible balance should be struck when the stakes are high between advancing social theory and concrete, timely reporting of ongoing events. We additionally comment on the computational challenges of gleaning insight from large amounts of social media data. Second, we characterize the role of social bots in social media manipulation around the discourse on the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. Third, we compare results from 2020 to prior years to note that, although bot accounts still contribute to the emergence of echo-chambers, there is a transition from state-sponsored campaigns to domestically emergent sources of distortion. Furthermore, issues of public health can be confounded by political orientation, especially from localized communities of actors who spread misinformation. We conclude that automation and social media manipulation pose issues to a healthy and democratic discourse, precisely because they distort representation of pluralism within the public sphere.

Final Year Undergraduate Students’ Representation of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Lockdown: Adaptability and Responsibility

“…Social media platforms favored fake news, hijacking behaviors and endangering human lives [63], delaying the search for treatment and a cure [3]. Chang et al [77] indicate the role of social robots in manipulating social media in relation to the narrative on the COVID-19 pandemic and the presidential elections in the USA, as well as a transition to emerging domestic sources of distortion. The COVID-19 pandemic has its own disinformation and propaganda.…”

“…The second category is conspiracy theories during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conspiracy theories are attempts at explaining some aspects, significant events or political circumstances viewed as plots organized by powerful actors, based on information that cannot be verified but cannot be faked very easily either, as well as on loop, such as reasoning, biases or loose evidence, according to Chang et al [77]. Fake rumors are less stable, spread more easily, and they have more chances to perpetuate than true information [77].…”

“…A considerable part of world population acknowledges its openness toward various conspiracy theories [77]. Explanations favoring conspiracies are used to justify the system and protect existing social and political structures.…”

Detecting and responding to hostile disinformation activities on social media using machine learning and deep neural networks

“…The Pew Research Center reports that 36% of Americans get their news from Facebook [44], and of those who use Twitter regularly, over half depend on Twitter as their source of news [44,45]. It can be said that the frequent tweeting and re-tweeting of dis/misinformation by bots leads to everincreasing exposure, resulting in an ''echo chamber effect'' [46]. Evidence also suggests that many individuals are unable to distinguish between factual and non-factual content found on Twitter and Facebook [24].…”

Persuasion Versus Manipulation: The Input of Pragmatics and C.D.A.

“…With the advent of digital rhetoric, manipulation through Social Media has become the major focus of research on manipulation. For instance, some scholars studied online manipulation through the analytic concepts of "bonding" and "autonomy" [28], "Social Bots and Social Media Manipulation" [9], and "Privacy and Manipulation in the Digital Age" [43]. Moreover, other scholars have debunked the assumption that Social Media promote democratic discourse on social and political issues [4].…”