Asymmetrical perceptions of partisan political bots

Yan, Harry Yaojun; Yang, Kai-Cheng; Menczer, Filippo; Shanahan, James

doi:10.1177/1461444820942744

Cited by 35 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 48 publications

(82 reference statements)

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“…However, this occurs in a way that is less emphatic and vulnerable to low-credibility content compared to the Right and Center-Right groups. Nevertheless, our results are consistent with findings that partisanship on both sides of the political spectrum increases the vulnerability to manipulation by social bots 50 .…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Neutral bots probe political bias on social media

et al. 2021

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Social media platforms attempting to curb abuse and misinformation have been accused of political bias. We deploy neutral social bots who start following different news sources on Twitter, and track them to probe distinct biases emerging from platform mechanisms versus user interactions. We find no strong or consistent evidence of political bias in the news feed. Despite this, the news and information to which U.S. Twitter users are exposed depend strongly on the political leaning of their early connections. The interactions of conservative accounts are skewed toward the right, whereas liberal accounts are exposed to moderate content shifting their experience toward the political center. Partisan accounts, especially conservative ones, tend to receive more followers and follow more automated accounts. Conservative accounts also find themselves in denser communities and are exposed to more low-credibility content.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Neutral bots probe political bias on social media

et al. 2021

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“…Misinformation spread can also be the result of manipulation. Social bots (Ferrara et al, 2016;Varol et al, 2017) can be designed to target vulnerable communities (Shao et al, 2018b;Yan et al, 2020) and exploit human and algorithmic biases that favor engaging content (Ciampaglia et al, 2018;Avram et al, 2020), leading to an amplification of exposure (Shao et al, 2018a;Lou et al, 2019). Finally, the polarized and segregated structure of political communication in online social networks (Conover et al, 2011) implies that information spreads efficiently within echo-chambers but not across them (Conover et al, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Right and left, partisanship predicts (asymmetric) vulnerability to misinformation

2021

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We analyze the relationship between partisanship, echo chambers, and vulnerability to online mis-information by studying news sharing behavior on Twitter. While our results confirm prior findings that online misinformation sharing is strongly correlated with right-leaning partisanship, we also uncover a similar, though weaker, trend among left-leaning users. Because of the correlation be-tween a user’s partisanship and their position within a partisan echo chamber, these types of influ-ence are confounded. To disentangle their effects, we performed a regression analysis and found that vulnerability to misinformation is most strongly influenced by partisanship for both left- and right-leaning users.

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“…Americans on the political right have more faith in their ability to intuitively recognize what is true, and they are more likely to believe that "truth" itself is a political construct (20). There is even some evidence suggesting that American conservatives are, on average, more credulous (21)(22)(23). However, evidence of ideologically asymmetric bias is mixed.…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This pattern may be amplified by bots, automated social media accounts that are often used to share political misinformation (30). Conservatives are more often fooled by bots purporting to share their ideology than liberals (21). Some scholars also contend that established news organizations, which are an influential source of factually accurate information, favor news coverage promoting liberal values, although this characterization is disputed (31)(32)(33).…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Conservatives’ susceptibility to political misperceptions

Garrett

Bond

2021

Sci. Adv.

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The idea that U.S. conservatives are uniquely likely to hold misperceptions is widespread but has not been systematically assessed. Research has focused on beliefs about narrow sets of claims never intended to capture the richness of the political information environment. Furthermore, factors contributing to this performance gap remain unclear. We generated an unique longitudinal dataset combining social media engagement data and a 12-wave panel study of Americans’ political knowledge about high-profile news over 6 months. Results confirm that conservatives have lower sensitivity than liberals, performing worse at distinguishing truths and falsehoods. This is partially explained by the fact that the most widely shared falsehoods tend to promote conservative positions, while corresponding truths typically favor liberals. The problem is exacerbated by liberals’ tendency to experience bigger improvements in sensitivity than conservatives as the proportion of partisan news increases. These results underscore the importance of reducing the supply of right-leaning misinformation.

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Asymmetrical perceptions of partisan political bots

Cited by 35 publications

References 48 publications

Neutral bots probe political bias on social media

Neutral bots probe political bias on social media

Right and left, partisanship predicts (asymmetric) vulnerability to misinformation

Conservatives’ susceptibility to political misperceptions

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