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posted by Fnord666 on Friday May 22 2020, @07:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the so-business-as-usual? dept.

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.


Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2

 
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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Aegis on Friday May 22 2020, @02:26PM (7 children)

    by Aegis (6714) on Friday May 22 2020, @02:26PM (#997853)

    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.

    So they used science and it worked. Good for them.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @03:22PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @03:22PM (#997878)

    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

      by driverless (4770) on Saturday May 23 2020, @06:53AM (#998091)

      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)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 22 2020, @04:06PM (#997895) Journal
    Are they going to use science again? Or is this just a one-time thing?
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 22 2020, @08:11PM (1 child)

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday May 22 2020, @08:11PM (#997966) Journal

      Are they going to use science again?

      Republicans are trying their hardest to make it a one time occurrence.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by HiThere on Friday May 22 2020, @06:55PM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 22 2020, @06:55PM (#997946) Journal

    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

    by toddestan (4982) on Saturday May 23 2020, @07:35PM (#998225)

    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.