'Relatively Few' Twitter Bots Were Needed To Spread Misinformation and Overwhelm Fact Checkers, Study Finds (nbcnews.com)

A new study conducted by Indian University researchers found that "relatively few accounts are responsible for a large share of the traffic that carries misinformation," with just 6 percent of Twitter accounts identified as bots responsible for 31 percent of "low-credibility" content. "Bots amplify the reach of low-credibility content, to the point that it is statistically indistinguishable from that of fact-checking articles," researchers wrote. NBC News reports: The study analyzed 14 million tweets that linked to more than 400,000 articles from May 2016 until the end of March 2017. Of those articles, 389,569 were from "low credibility sources" that had been repeatedly flagged by fact-checking organizations for containing misinformation, as well as 15,053 articles that originated from "fact-checking sources." Of that sample, over 13.6 million tweets linked to "low-credibility sources" and around 1.1 million tweets linked to known fact-checking sources, leading researchers to attribute greater virality with "fake news." To achieve maximum exposure, the study found that "social bots" used two methods to manipulate users into trusting the linked article's validity.

"First, bots are particularly active in amplifying content in the very early spreading moments, before an article goes 'viral,'" researchers wrote. "Second, bots target influential users through replies and mentions." Users struggled to differentiate bots from other human users, as humans "have retweeted bots who post low-credibility content almost as much as they retweet other humans," according to the researchers. The researchers noted that social media platforms have moved to address the spread of misinformation by bots, but said "their effectiveness is hard to evaluate."

Comments

The article is VERY poorly written.

[Futurepower(R)]

Good point. But the article is VERY poorly written.

Instead of:

"... with just 6 percent of Twitter accounts identified as bots responsible for 31 percent of 'low-credibility' content."

It could be:

"Of the 6 percent of Twitter accounts that were identified as bots, 31 percent were responsible for 'low-credibility' content."

When I think about that, I am confused about what could be the underlying meaning. Does that mean 94% of the bots were doing something else besides giving dishonest content? What were the 94% doing? What is "low-credibility" content? Is that content that is only partly dishonest?

The issue is that the article is poorly written, and also that probably no one knows what percentage of Twitter accounts are robots, not reporters or Twitter managers.

From the article: "Twitter has removed tens of millions of accounts in 2018."

Fact Checking Twitter?

[Karmashock]

... it is twitter... it is the place you go to read drunken rants from celebrities or updates to a concert or something.

Twitter is a terrible information source and always was a terrible information source.

Who "honestly" thinks twitter even should be fact checked? And who would be crazy enough to pay someone to do that. Imagine that job listing "wanted 5000 people to fact check tweets"... No.

Most information sources shouldn't be fact checked because you can get to the same place just by exercising a little skepticism.

And really, a lot of the mainstream media guys deserve to be in the same boat. Look at mainstream media guys using anonymous sources. We're seeing that in the New York Times now. This was understood until recently to be a gold standard violation of establishment media. You don't do certain things.

1. You don't mix your editorials/opinions with straight news reporting. They violate that all the time now.

2. You don't use anonymous sources because they can't be fact checked by third party sources which means you could just make it all up. They do that all the time now.

3. You don't pay people for sources and you don't use information as a source that was bought. We've seen a few examples of that recently as well.

The above violations are what used to separate tabloids from the boring but accurate newspapers.

Well, what actually is the difference now? Seriously. What rule or code of ethics separates the two? I don't see it.

And on top of that to suggest Twitter of all things should be fact checked when they're clearly not upholding journalistic ethics in the mainstream newspapers?

The mad are running the asylum.

As it stands, fact checking organizations or processes seem to have entirely broken down. So, I have to fact check everything myself personally. And I suggest everyone do the same until this bought of unethical behavior passes. Keep an open mind, listen to what people have to say, but reserve judgment until you've checked it out. And until then... jump to no conclusions.

it is a little like your local water utility leaking sewage into the pipes. Which happens sometimes. Don't just drink it... boil it to kill the bacteria that might be in it and muddle through the mess. At some point, the media will fix itself. But at this point, the media won't even acknowledge it has a problem.