One in four debate tweets comes from a bot. Here’s how to spot them.
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Posted:
21 October 2016
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Tags:
comprop, Digital Politics and Government, In the News, Phil Howard, U.S. Presidential Debate, U.S. Presidential Election, Washington Post
The project’s research into the US presidential election was featured in the Washington Post.
Philip Howard has a fancy name for partisan election bots. He calls them “computational propaganda” — and lately, he sees them a lot.
On Oct. 14, the Oxford University professor released a paper dissecting bot activity after the first American presidential debate, finding that — among other things — Donald Trump benefited disproportionately. Wednesday, he released a report on the second presidential debate that confirms and expands upon the findings of the first: namely, that propaganda bots are active on both sides, and that the pro-Trump accounts are worse.
