Bots and automation over Twitter during the first U.S. Presidential debate: COMPROP Data Memo 2016.1

Bots are social media accounts that automate interaction with other users, and political bots have been particularly active on public policy issues, political crises, and elections. We collected data on bot activity using the major hashtags related to the U.S. Presidential debate....

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Main Authors: Kollanyi, B, Howard, P, Woolley, S
Format: Report
Published: EU COMPROP project 2016
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author Kollanyi, B
Howard, P
Woolley, S
author_facet Kollanyi, B
Howard, P
Woolley, S
author_sort Kollanyi, B
collection OXFORD
description Bots are social media accounts that automate interaction with other users, and political bots have been particularly active on public policy issues, political crises, and elections. We collected data on bot activity using the major hashtags related to the U.S. Presidential debate. In this brief analysis we find that (1) Twitter traffic on pro-Trump hashtags was roughly double that of the pro-Clinton hashtags, (2) about one third of the pro-Trump twitter traffic was driven by bots and highly automated accounts, compared to one fifth of the pro-Clinton twitter traffic, (3) the significant rise of Twitter traffic around debate time is mostly from real users who generate original tweets using the more neutral hashtags. In short, Twitter is much more actively pro-Trump than pro-Clinton and more of the pro-Trump twitter traffic is driven by bots, but a significant number of (human) users still use Twitter for relatively neutral political expression in critical moments.
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spelling oxford-uuid:b8bb1dd8-58c0-440f-a9c4-c94fe722c8892022-03-27T04:57:55ZBots and automation over Twitter during the first U.S. Presidential debate: COMPROP Data Memo 2016.1Reporthttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_93fcuuid:b8bb1dd8-58c0-440f-a9c4-c94fe722c889Symplectic Elements at OxfordEU COMPROP project2016Kollanyi, BHoward, PWoolley, SBots are social media accounts that automate interaction with other users, and political bots have been particularly active on public policy issues, political crises, and elections. We collected data on bot activity using the major hashtags related to the U.S. Presidential debate. In this brief analysis we find that (1) Twitter traffic on pro-Trump hashtags was roughly double that of the pro-Clinton hashtags, (2) about one third of the pro-Trump twitter traffic was driven by bots and highly automated accounts, compared to one fifth of the pro-Clinton twitter traffic, (3) the significant rise of Twitter traffic around debate time is mostly from real users who generate original tweets using the more neutral hashtags. In short, Twitter is much more actively pro-Trump than pro-Clinton and more of the pro-Trump twitter traffic is driven by bots, but a significant number of (human) users still use Twitter for relatively neutral political expression in critical moments.
spellingShingle Kollanyi, B
Howard, P
Woolley, S
Bots and automation over Twitter during the first U.S. Presidential debate: COMPROP Data Memo 2016.1
title Bots and automation over Twitter during the first U.S. Presidential debate: COMPROP Data Memo 2016.1
title_full Bots and automation over Twitter during the first U.S. Presidential debate: COMPROP Data Memo 2016.1
title_fullStr Bots and automation over Twitter during the first U.S. Presidential debate: COMPROP Data Memo 2016.1
title_full_unstemmed Bots and automation over Twitter during the first U.S. Presidential debate: COMPROP Data Memo 2016.1
title_short Bots and automation over Twitter during the first U.S. Presidential debate: COMPROP Data Memo 2016.1
title_sort bots and automation over twitter during the first u s presidential debate comprop data memo 2016 1
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