Public Opinion Manipulation on Social Media: Social Network Analysis of Twitter Bots during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Int J Environ Res Public Health
; 19(24)2022 12 07.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2155067
ABSTRACT
Social media is not only an essential platform for the dissemination of public health-related information, but also an important channel for people to communicate during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, social bots can interfere with the social media topics that humans follow. We analyzed and visualized Twitter data during the prevalence of the Wuhan lab leak theory and discovered that 29% of the accounts participating in the discussion were social bots. We found evidence that social bots play an essential mediating role in communication networks. Although human accounts have a more direct influence on the information diffusion network, social bots have a more indirect influence. Unverified social bot accounts retweet more, and through multiple levels of diffusion, humans are vulnerable to messages manipulated by bots, driving the spread of unverified messages across social media. These findings show that limiting the use of social bots might be an effective method to minimize the spread of conspiracy theories and hate speech online.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Social Media
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Observational study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Ijerph192416376
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