Bots Are Likely Responsible For Nearly Half Of Covid-19 Tweets, Say Researchers
Nearly half of some 200 million tweets about Covid-19 likely came from bots, with many of them plugging false cures, peddling conspiracy theories and clamouring for the US to drop safety measures in order to re-open America, researchers have found.
Ongoing research by computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University indicates that a significant portion of the social media conversation about Covid-19 is likely automated amplifications of political perspectives and do not represent individual human authors.
The study has reached no conclusion about which interests may be primarily responsible for the bots, but many of the messages are repeating information from Russian and Chinese state media. During the 2016 presidential election, computer operations linked to the Kremlin were found to be responsible for campaign tweets and other messages that further divided the American electorate by amplifying controversy.
With coronavirus, “We do know that it looks like it’s a propaganda machine, and it definitely matches the Russian and Chinese playbooks, but it would take a tremendous amount of resources to substantiate that,” lead researcher Kathleen Carley, a computer science professor and head of the university’s Center for Informed Democracy and Social Cybersecurity, said in a Carnegie Mellon report last week about the research.
“We do see that a lot of bots are acting in ways that are consistent with the storylines that are coming out of Russia or China,” Carley told VICE.
A European Union study concluded that the Kremlin and pro-Kremlin groups have launched a “significant disinformation campaign” about Covid-19 to sow panic in the West, Reuters reported earlier this year.
Researchers said that the sophisticated bot campaign concerning Covid-19 is also aimed at exacerbating divisions in the US. Messages peddling conspiracy theories “increase polarisation in groups. It’s what many misinformation campaigns aim to do,” Carley said. “People have...
