A New Threat to Democracy? Examining the Democratic Implications of the Social Bot Phenomenon
Journal: Lund University Publications Student Papers (Lund University)
Year: 2018

Social media provides tools that enable people to share their political views and coordinate collective action and has often been praised for entailing numerous democratic opportunities. But what happens when someone finds a way to exploit these tools? Social bots, algorithmically driven software programs designed to mimic and possibly alter human behavior on social media forums, have been used to manipulate public opinion during several major political events during the last few years. The purp