Bots as online impersonators

automated manipulators and their different roles on social media

Authors

  • Marie Santini Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
  • Débora Gomes Salles Instituto Brasileiro de Informação, Ciência e Tecnologia
  • Charbelly Estrella Estrella IBICT, UFRJ, UERJ
  • Carlos Eduardo Barros
  • Daniela Orofino

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29173/irie402

Keywords:

social bots, astroturfing, grounded theory, Twitter, election, Brazil

Abstract

Social bots are automated agents programmed to act on social media impersonating human behaviour to influence discussions online. This paper aims to contribute to the discussion of how bots can endanger online communication and alter information flows. We resorted to a mixed-method approach based on grounded theory and observational techniques in order to investigate the bots’ activities online during the 2016 municipal elections in Rio de Janeiro. We collected related content on Twitter in this period and detected 3,101 bots. This sample was classified in three categories based on tweeting content: user-generated bot, media spambot, and political bot. Our findings indicate that, although bots work for different political and social purposes, their computational nature claims into service of dominant social groups and economical elites. We conclude that computational propaganda is building a dangerous scenario of widespread automation in which different kinds of algorithms bias social media conversation.

Author Biographies

Marie Santini, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Rose Marie Santini is an Associate Professor at the Department of Communication at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil. She is an Associate Researcher at the Graduate Program in Information Science of UFRJ in agreement with the Brazilian Institute of Information Science and Technology (IBICT) and director of NetLab (Laboratory for Social Networks Research at UFRJ). http://www.netlab.eco.ufrj.br/ .

Débora Gomes Salles, Instituto Brasileiro de Informação, Ciência e Tecnologia

Débora Salles, Ph.D. in Information Science, is a post-doc researcher at the Brazilian Institute of Information Science and Technology (IBICT), and researcher at NetLab at the School of Communication of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), acting as a specialist in populist communication logics on social media. Her research focuses on digital media, computational propaganda, social networks and disinformation.

Charbelly Estrella Estrella, IBICT, UFRJ, UERJ

Charbelly Estrella is a Ph.D. student in Information Science at the Graduate Program in Information Science of School of Communication of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in agreement with the Brazilian Institute of Information Science and Technology, and a researcher at Netlab/UFRJ. She is also public relations at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) and received a Ph.D. special scholarship for public servants.

Carlos Eduardo Barros

Carlos Eduardo Barros is a Master student in Information Science at the Graduate Program in Information Science of School of Communication of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in agreement with the Brazilian Institute of Information Science and Technology (IBICT), and a researcher assistant at Netlab/UFRJ.

Daniela Orofino

Daniela Orofino is a Master student in Information Science at the Graduate Program in Information Science of School of Communication of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in agreement with the Brazilian Institute of Information Science and Technology (IBICT), and a researcher assistant at Netlab/UFRJ.

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Published

2021-08-31

How to Cite

Santini, Rose Marie, Débora Salles, Charbelly Estrella Estrella, Carlos Eduardo Barros, and Daniela Orofino. 2021. “Bots As Online Impersonators: Automated Manipulators and Their Different Roles on Social Media”. The International Review of Information Ethics 30 (1). Edmonton, Canada. https://doi.org/10.29173/irie402.

Issue

Vol. 30 No. 1 (2021): The ecology of literacy diversity in the new regimes of information

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Article

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