Half of the Twitter accounts calling for reopening America are bots

With more than 200 million tweets discussing the coronavirus suggests 45%-60% come from bots. A cybersecurity researcher warns that misinformation campaigns from convincing bots are fueling much of the social media debate about lifting coronavirus lockdowns and reopening the economy.

About 82% of the top 50 most influential coronavirus/COVID-19 retweeters were bots, as were 62% of the top 1,000 retweeters, according to the report.

“We’re seeing up to two times as much bot activity as we’d predicted based on previous natural disasters, crises and elections,” wrote Kathleen Carley, a professor in the School of Computer Science’s Institute for Software Research and director of the Center for Informed Democracy & Social - Cybersecurity (IDeaS.)

The research further said, the hundreds of millions of tweets by using artificial intelligence and network analysis techniques to identify the accounts that were likely bots, such as looking at the number of followers, the frequency of tweeting and an account’s mentions network.

Tweeting more frequently than is humanly possible, or appearing to be in one country and then another a few hours later, is indicative of a bot,Carley says.


“When we see a whole bunch of tweets at the same time or back to back, it’s like they’re timed,” she added. “We also look for use of the same exact hashtag, or messaging that appears to be copied and pasted from one bot to the next.”


The researchers also found that many of the bot accounts tweeting about the coronavirus were created in February, and have been spreading more than 100 types of inaccurate pandemic stories, including phony medical advice and potential cures.

These accounts have also amplified conspiracy theories, such as those speculating about the origins of the virus, claims that hospitals are being filled with mannequins instead of actual patients, as well as linking the coronavirus to 5G towers.

The social media site claimed to have removed more than 2,230 tweets containing “misleading and potentially harmful content” between March 18 and April 22 of this year, and added that its automated systems have challenged more than 3.4 million accounts “targeting manipulative discussions around COVID-19.”