The spread of low-credibility content by social bots

被引：662

作者：

Shao, Chengcheng ^{[1
,2
]}

Ciampaglia, Giovanni Luca ^{[3
]}

Varol, Onur ^{[1
]}

Yang, Kai-Cheng ^{[1
]}

Flammini, Alessandro ^{[1
,3
]}

Menczer, Filippo ^{[1
,3
]}

机构：

[1] Indiana Univ, Sch Informat Comp & Engn, Bloomington, IN 47408 USA

[2] Natl Univ Def Technol, Coll Comp, Changsha 410073, Hunan, Peoples R China

[3] Indiana Univ, Network Sci Inst, Bloomington, IN 47408 USA

来源：

NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | 2018年 / 9卷

基金：

美国国家科学基金会;

关键词：

MEDIA; NEWS;

D O I：

10.1038/s41467-018-06930-7

中图分类号：

O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];

学科分类号：

07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;

摘要：

The massive spread of digital misinformation has been identified as a major threat to democracies. Communication, cognitive, social, and computer scientists are studying the complex causes for the viral diffusion of misinformation, while online platforms are beginning to deploy countermeasures. Little systematic, data-based evidence has been published to guide these efforts. Here we analyze 14 million messages spreading 400 thousand articles on Twitter during ten months in 2016 and 2017. We find evidence that social bots played a disproportionate role in spreading articles from low-credibility sources. Bots amplify such content in the early spreading moments, before an article goes viral. They also target users with many followers through replies and mentions. Humans are vulnerable to this manipulation, resharing content posted by bots. Successful low-credibility sources are heavily supported by social bots. These results suggest that curbing social bots may be an effective strategy for mitigating the spread of online misinformation.

引用

页数：9

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