NCRM videos

David Schoch: Political Astroturfing on Twitter

08-11-2018

David Schoch presents at methods@manchester Methods Fair 2018. Abstract: Political astroturfing, i.e. hidden propaganda on social media, has the potential to influence electoral outcomes and other forms of political behavior. A prime example constitutes the alleged interference of Russia in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. A common tool in such campaigns are automated accounts (bots) that flood platforms either in an attempt to boost the popularity of candidates or to discredit others. Although bots are becoming increasingly sophisticated, they are still an easy target for carefully devised detection algorithms. An often neglected factor, though, is the human component in these campaigns. That is, paid agents pretending to be ordinary citizens yet posting in favor of an astroturfing campaign. Common methods for bot detection mostly fail to uncover these accounts due to their apparent human-like nature. In this talk, I present some methodological advancements in detecting such accounts. The tools are used to analyze one of the first large scale astroturfing campaigns during the South Korean presidential election in 2012.