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Nearly Half of Twitter Accounts Pushing to Reopen America May be Bots
There has been a huge upswell of Twitter bot activity since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, amplifying medical disinformation and the push to reopen America.
In a new study, the researchers have found that bots may account for between 45 and 60% of Twitter accounts discussing Covid-19. Many of those accounts were created in February and have since been spreading and amplifying misinformation, including false medical advice, conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus, and pushes to end stay-at-home orders and reopen America.
They follow well-worn patterns of coordinated influence campaigns, and their strategy is already working: since the beginning of the crisis, the researchers have observed a greater polarisation in Twitter discourse around the topic.
[...] Unfortunately, there are no easy solutions to this problem. Banning or removing accounts won't work, as more can be spun up for every one that is deleted. Banning accounts that spread inaccurate facts also won't solve anything. "A lot of disinformation is done through innuendo or done through illogical statements, and those are hard to discover," she says.
Carley says researchers, corporations, and the government need to coordinate better to come up with effective policies and practices for tamping this down. "I think we need some kind of general oversight group," she says. "Because no one group can do it alone."
Twitter accounts pushing to reopen America
[Source]: Misinformation and Disinformation Regarding Coronavirus in Social Media
What is your take on this?
Researchers: Nearly Half of Accounts Tweeting about Coronavirus are Likely Bots
Researchers: Nearly Half Of Accounts Tweeting About Coronavirus Are Likely Bots:
Nearly half of the Twitter accounts spreading messages on the social media platform about the coronavirus pandemic are likely bots, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University said Wednesday.
Researchers culled through more than 200 million tweets discussing the virus since January and found that about 45% were sent by accounts that behave more like computerized robots than humans.
It is too early to say conclusively which individuals or groups are behind the bot accounts, but researchers said the tweets appeared aimed at sowing division in America.
"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," said Kathleen Carley, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University who is conducting a study into bot-generated coronavirus activity on Twitter that has yet to be published.
[..] Reuters reported in March that Russian media have recently deployed a widespread disinformation campaign against the West to worsen the impact of the coronavirus to create panic and distrust.
Efforts to fight back against the spread of false information about COVID-19 come just as the federal government and election security experts keep a watchful eye on the November election.
American intelligence agencies concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Experts believe Russian actors will try to influence the 2020 vote as well, including by using social media to amplify their messages.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @10:22AM (28 children)
Nearly Half of Comments Pushing to Keep America Closed May be Bots
(Score: 5, Insightful) by zocalo on Friday May 22 2020, @10:57AM (27 children)
People are now getting so blinkered to the views of a given bubble, whether political or otherwise, that finding some middle ground and compromising is becoming increasingly hard to achieve. If it ever becomes impossible because all sides commit to an all or nothing approach, then it's pretty much game over.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @11:37AM (3 children)
0.05% loss of population vs. 20% loss of economy
(Score: 4, Interesting) by HiThere on Friday May 22 2020, @06:48PM (1 child)
Bot or innumerate? Can be hard to tell the difference.
When they talk about "social media", Soylent News is included.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday May 23 2020, @12:21PM
Without outing who it is, that comment came from a regular Soylent denizen.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday May 23 2020, @07:16PM
Well, in reference to the comment you just replied to, why not both?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 22 2020, @12:19PM (1 child)
U.S.ians protesting the lockdown was about as predictable as trouble in the pubs after an apparent bad call against England in the World Cup.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @12:17PM
Who has time for Twitter? Oh, people suddenly stuck at home. They would need to make accounts of course, all in February, and there you go.
Humans are thus proven to be bots.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @01:11PM (14 children)
The politicians using the lockdown for their own political ends and thus polarizing politics. Twitter does not change how people think, but politicians are simply disingenuous and manipulative.
Once upon a time, our governor locked down the state to "flatten the curve" and keep the medical system from being overwhelmed. Far from being overwhelmed, our hospital has had four days this week of treating zero patients. Nobody is in our hospital with COVID. Yet the lockdown persists, and we are now told to do more, including wearing masks, than when this all started. The curve is flat, the hospital is empty, yet our governor (Inslee, a climate change fanatic) refuses to allow people to go to work or church. He claims that his decisions are guided by "science," but this is just the politician's way of deflecting blame for decisions that are, in fact, political. There's no science behind continuing to destroy the economy when the hospitals are empty, because that is a political decision.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @01:23PM (4 children)
> Twitter does not change how people think,
Disagree -- repeating the same thing over and over has been demonstrated to change how people think. Twitter is a great place to find repeats (echos). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect [wikipedia.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by hemocyanin on Friday May 22 2020, @03:37PM (2 children)
So what you're saying is, RussiaRussiaRussia is a deceptive manipulative ploy designed to whitewash Democrats of responsibility for the policy decisions they've made over the last 30 years which culminated in the election of Trump.
(Score: 4, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 22 2020, @05:38PM (1 child)
Both articles explicitly mention they don;t know who is running the bots.
But hey, keep pummeling that straw man, it's so much easier than arguing with humans.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Saturday May 23 2020, @04:40PM
Well, the legacy media is its own sort of bot and is almost entirely a marketing wing for the DNC. Yet who complains?
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by khallow on Friday May 22 2020, @04:05PM
You can see the person fully agrees with my position because I repeated it (allegedly) enough times.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Aegis on Friday May 22 2020, @02:26PM (7 children)
So they used science and it worked. Good for them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @03:22PM (1 child)
The whole problem is, neither they nor you care one bit whether it is bad for anyone else.
You are too accustomed to playing your games without negative feedback. It is high time you get reacquainted with the concept.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday May 23 2020, @06:53AM
I'm outside the US so I don't know how bad it really is there, but in some countries the leaders did care about doing the right thing. It wasn't just the leaders, even opposition parties got into the act and supported the government in getting things sorted out. It was weird talking to our neighbours yesterday, both of whom are lifelong Party X supporters, who said they'd vote for the current leader despite her being Party Y. In other words we're not really very polarised, and if someone does a good job they'll get the credit for it no matter which political group they're part of.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 22 2020, @04:06PM (2 children)
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 22 2020, @08:11PM (1 child)
Republicans are trying their hardest to make it a one time occurrence.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday May 22 2020, @08:18PM
(Score: 4, Informative) by HiThere on Friday May 22 2020, @06:55PM
Try "is working" rather than "worked". The tense change is significant.
Mind you, "lock down" is overly strict. It has the sole advantage that it's something that can be done quickly. Then you need to figure out how to loosen up without getting back into insufficient social distancing, with the problem that there's a two week delay between the mistake and when the epidemic starts ramping up again....and it's spreading during that delay.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by toddestan on Saturday May 23 2020, @07:35PM
The problem is that it's working too well. It's still out there. We still have community transmission, we can slow it down a lot, but we're not going to be able to stop it. Maybe if science was used right from the start it would be different, but that train left the station some time ago.
The only thing the US can do now is let it burn through the population. Partial lock downs, social distancing, masks, etc. are tools to slow down the rate and flatten the curve so that the healthcare system doesn't get overwhelmed. Ideally, the burn rate should be just below what the healthcare system can handle to make the remaining lockdown a short as possible. Since that's going to be a hard target to hit accurately and you don't want to overshoot, obviously you want to aim a bit below that. But if the hospitals are almost empty then the lockdown is just being needlessly prolonged.
Of course, the politicians aren't going to come out and say this, because it's essentially admitting that their plan is that you will be exposed to the virus at some point and you will be infected which isn't going to go down well with a lot of people. And of course that they screwed up back in the January-February timeframe.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @04:37PM
It's a game of brinkmanship.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @08:05PM (2 children)
Actually, the open-now agenda damages the US economy MORE, just few months down the road. If you can't get the virus under control fast, it means that people are not following the rules. And if they are not following the rules now, they will sure ignore any further restrictions down the road which will damage the economy more as businesses shut but people get sick more and start dying. You can see Peru as a perfect example of Sheeple that
1. ignored lockdown measures
2. now cry they are dying and complaining to government they didn't do enough.
If you want a healthy economy, you need to have healthy people not afraid of going outside. And the idiots pushing now for re-opening are the idiots that will keep majority from reviving the economy.
If you want to see how virus hurts economies even without strick lockdowns, look how Sweden is hurting as their cases are increasing.
(Score: 1, Touché) by khallow on Friday May 22 2020, @08:23PM (1 child)
Passing stricter rules for people to ignore is going to be so much better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @11:32PM
> Passing stricter rules for people to ignore is going to be so much better.
I'm not going to pay any attention to rules or lack of rules. I'm a hermit anyway, work at home already. I'm not coming out, except as strictly necessary, until there is a vaccine that has been shown to work for awhile (and after I've been vaccinated.)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by driverless on Saturday May 23 2020, @06:40AM (2 children)
Yup. That's why you need effective national leadership to provide direction in the presence of noise.
If it's good leadership then that's even better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @03:47PM (1 child)
My leader sent me $1200 and a signed letter. What more do you want?!
(Score: 2) by helel on Sunday May 24 2020, @06:19AM
Weekly testing to see if I or anyone I've been in contact with has been exposed.