American activists were behind efforts to spread conspiracies with bot networks, study finds
American political activists on the left and the right are using networks of social media followers that behave like bots to rapidly spread conspiracy theories.
American political activists on the left and the right are using networks of social media followers that behave like bots to rapidly spread conspiracy theories embraced by significant segments of the U.S. population, according to a new report by a disinformation research group.
The bogus claim that the attempt to assassinate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, was staged and the lie that Haitian migrants were stealing and eating pets in Ohio were spread across social media platforms in a remarkably similar fashion. Both were spread by groups of linked accounts engaging in “coordinated, inauthentic behavior,” says the report, "The Botification of the Americans Mind," by Rutgers University’s Network Contagion Research Institute, or NCRI.
While such sophisticated disinformation tactics are often associated with foreign actors like Russia, Iran or China, the report highlights a troubling domestic trend: Americans themselves are deploying the techniques to spread malicious falsehoods designed to manipulate and polarize public opinion.
“It’s a concerning trend in American politics,” said Joel Finkelstein, a co-founder of NCRI. “You have tens of thousands of willing netizens who are amplifying this type of content. We spent a long time saying it’s the Russians, it’s the Chinese — it’s us.”
The report found that pro-Democratic activists using the hashtag #BlueCrew played a key role in spreading the discredited idea that the shooting of Trump in Butler was fake or staged.
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