Abstract

Social-media platforms such as Twitter were used to sow discord in the United States in the run up to the 2016 presidential election, according to a report finalized this year by the US Senate. Russian operatives used tools such as bots—automated accounts that share content—in an attempt to deceive social-media users in the United States and sway the election in favour of President Donald Trump, the report found.
With the 2020 election now in progress, researchers are more worried than ever that bots will interfere. The fake accounts have become more sophisticated and harder to detect, says Emilio Ferrara, a data scientist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Ferrara studies social-media bots to understand how they can change people’s beliefs and behaviours.

Date

November 5, 2020

Authors

EMILIO FERRARA

Journal

Nature

Volume

587

Pages

21