News Finding: The analysis also revealed that bots amplify a message's volume and visibility until it's more likely to be shared broadly, despite only representing a small fraction of the accounts that spread viral messages.
Paper Finding: Relatively few accounts are responsible for a large share of the traffic that carries misinformation.
News Context: The brief length of this time -- two to 10 seconds -- highlights the challenges of countering the spread of misinformation online. "This study finds that bots significantly contribute to the spread of misinformation online -- as well as shows how quickly these messages can spread," said Filippo Menczer, a professor in the IU School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, who led the study. The analysis also revealed that bots amplify a message's volume and visibility until it's more likely to be shared broadly, despite only representing a small fraction of the accounts that spread viral messages.
Paper Context: Our analysis provides quantitative empirical evidence of the key role played by social bots in the viral spread of fake news online. Relatively few accounts are responsible for a large share of the traffic that carries misinformation. These accounts are likely bots, and we uncovered several manipulation strategies they use.