Bots as Active News Promoters: A Digital Analysis of COVID-19 Tweets
In this study, we examined the activities of automated social media accounts or bots that tweet or retweet referencing #COVID-19 and #COVID19. From a total sample of over 50 million tweets, we used a mixed method to extract more than 185,000 messages posted by 127 bots. Our findings show that the ma...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2020-09-01
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| Series: | Information |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/10/461 |
| _version_ | 1797552456125644800 |
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| author | Ahmed Al-Rawi Vishal Shukla |
| author_facet | Ahmed Al-Rawi Vishal Shukla |
| author_sort | Ahmed Al-Rawi |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In this study, we examined the activities of automated social media accounts or bots that tweet or retweet referencing #COVID-19 and #COVID19. From a total sample of over 50 million tweets, we used a mixed method to extract more than 185,000 messages posted by 127 bots. Our findings show that the majority of these bots tweet, retweet and mention mainstream media outlets, promote health protection and telemedicine, and disseminate breaking news on the number of casualties and deaths caused by COVID-19. We argue that some of these bots are motivated by financial incentives, while other bots actively support the survivalist movement by emphasizing the need to prepare for the pandemic and learn survival skills. We only found a few bots that showed some suspicious activity probably due to the fact that our dataset was limited to two hashtags often used by official health bodies and academic communities. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T16:00:19Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-f7c5d1b98c144df3a6e88a54b753b421 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2078-2489 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T16:00:19Z |
| publishDate | 2020-09-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Information |
| spelling | doaj.art-f7c5d1b98c144df3a6e88a54b753b4212023-11-20T15:20:34ZengMDPI AGInformation2078-24892020-09-01111046110.3390/info11100461Bots as Active News Promoters: A Digital Analysis of COVID-19 TweetsAhmed Al-Rawi0Vishal Shukla1School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, CanadaData Scientist, Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto, ON M5J 2W7, CanadaIn this study, we examined the activities of automated social media accounts or bots that tweet or retweet referencing #COVID-19 and #COVID19. From a total sample of over 50 million tweets, we used a mixed method to extract more than 185,000 messages posted by 127 bots. Our findings show that the majority of these bots tweet, retweet and mention mainstream media outlets, promote health protection and telemedicine, and disseminate breaking news on the number of casualties and deaths caused by COVID-19. We argue that some of these bots are motivated by financial incentives, while other bots actively support the survivalist movement by emphasizing the need to prepare for the pandemic and learn survival skills. We only found a few bots that showed some suspicious activity probably due to the fact that our dataset was limited to two hashtags often used by official health bodies and academic communities.https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/10/461botsCOVID-19Twittersocial mediahealth communication |
| spellingShingle | Ahmed Al-Rawi Vishal Shukla Bots as Active News Promoters: A Digital Analysis of COVID-19 Tweets Information bots COVID-19 social media health communication |
| title | Bots as Active News Promoters: A Digital Analysis of COVID-19 Tweets |
| title_full | Bots as Active News Promoters: A Digital Analysis of COVID-19 Tweets |
| title_fullStr | Bots as Active News Promoters: A Digital Analysis of COVID-19 Tweets |
| title_full_unstemmed | Bots as Active News Promoters: A Digital Analysis of COVID-19 Tweets |
| title_short | Bots as Active News Promoters: A Digital Analysis of COVID-19 Tweets |
| title_sort | bots as active news promoters a digital analysis of covid 19 tweets |
| topic | bots COVID-19 social media health communication |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/10/461 |
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