Posted on 11/06/2022 5:36:43 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
An anti-Russia “bot army” of fake automated Twitter accounts flooded the Internet with pro-Ukraine propaganda at the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, according to a mostly unreported study by a team of researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia.
Up to 80 percent of tweets pushing the pro-Ukraine side in the beginning days of the Russia-Ukraine war were posted by bots, according to the study which examined over 5 million tweets.
“The university researchers also found these automated tweets had been purposely used to drive up fear amongst people targeted by them, boosting a high level of statistically measurable ‘angst’ in the online discourse,” Declassified Australia reported on Nov. 3.
“This new research paper confirms mounting fears that social media has covertly become what the researchers call ‘a critical tool in information warfare playing a large role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.’ ”
The researchers found that 90.2 percent of all tweets (both bot and non-bot) came from accounts that were pro-Ukraine, with fewer than 7 percent of the accounts being classed as pro-Russian.
Declassified Australia noted that the study was released in August but has been widely ignored by Big Media.
Instead, Big Media went with significantly smaller studies, such as the Meta/Facebook study on so-called “Russian disinformation” that involved just 1,600 Facebook accounts. That study was widely reported, including by ABC News.
The University of Adelaide research team analyzed 5,203,746 tweets that were sent with key hashtags in the first two weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine which began on Feb. 24. The researchers considered predominately English-language accounts, with a calculated 1.8-million unique Twitter accounts in the dataset posting at least one English-language tweet.
The results were published in August in a research paper, titled “#IStandWithPutin versus #IStandWithUkraine: The interaction of bots and humans in discussion of the Russia/Ukraine war“, by the University of Adelaide’s School of Mathematical Science.
“Reports on the new research have appeared in a few independent media sites, and in Russia’s RT, but not much else, so revealing the burial of stories that don’t fit the desired pro-Western narrative,” Declassified Australia noted.
The University of Adelaide study found automated bot accounts to be the source of between 60 to 80 percent of all tweets in the dataset.
The published data shows that in the first week of the Ukraine-Russia war there was a huge mass of pro-Ukrainian hashtag bot activity. Approximately 3.5 million tweets using the hashtag #IStandWithUkraine were sent by bots in that first week.
On the first day of the war, the #IStandWithUkraine hashtag was used in as many as 38,000 tweets each hour, rising to 50,000 tweets an hour by day three of the war.
By comparison, the study shows that in the first week there was an almost total absence of pro-Russian bot activity using the key hashtags. During that first week of the invasion, pro-Russian bots were sending off tweets using the #IStandWithPutin or #IStandWithRussia hashtags at a rate of only several hundred per hour.
The fake tweets and automated bot accounts had not been detected and removed by Twitter before being analyzed by the researchers, although some were possibly removed in the March sweep by Twitter. Joshua Watt, one of the lead researchers on the university team, told Declassified Australia that in fact many of the bot accounts behind the 5-million tweets studied are likely to be still up and running.
The actual source paper says pro Russian trolls were more effective than pro Ukrainian bots.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.07038
Probably WEF directions to all NWO scum.
Always a favorite.
Dumbass, read the abstract of the paper that the OP linked. It says it quite clearly that pro Russian “non-bot” accounts (paid trolls) were more effective than automated bots.
“I smell George Soros.”
Yep, this war is CLEARLY a product of the Neocons and Globalists (i.e., Soros). Even Ukraine didn’t want it, but had no choice about it.
Usually the case when a weaker neighbor is invaded by a powerful one.
You neoconneds are an angry bunch. 
“Usually the case when a weaker neighbor is invaded by a powerful one.”
Or when one’s sponsors have the Azovs as enforcers to carry out their (hopeless) Neocon agenda of “Weakening Russia”.
TOTALLY unlike the neocons and globalists to gin up a war.
Iraq.
Serbia.
Libya.
Syria.
My hands are getting tired from typing.
“It says it quite clearly that pro Russian “non-bot” accounts (paid trolls) were more effective than automated bots.”
~~~~~~~
Perhaps you can cut and paste the part where either article says that those more effective Russian “Non-Bot” accounts were “paid Trolls”.
Not seeing that.
Nope. It is just the hatred and lies of pro-Ukrainian bots who managed to increase the Russian support for war from zero to 90%.
As for the Russian propaganda, thanks for a laugh. Not only all the Russian media is banned in the ‘free world’, go try to post a video like ‘Russian tank destroys Ukrainian tank’ on YT and see how long it stays put.
Look Toivo. All you need is a couple of beers and you’ll be just fine.
By 2022, Ukraine’s army was the third largest in Europe, behind Russia and Turkey.
You can’t find da beer, Eino.
Only one person is responsible for launching this war: Vladimir Putin.
EFF that! I’ll find it. I’ll crawl on the floor!
Dang Finlander woman!
Seems like lots of those bots have been posting pro-Ukraine propaganda right here on FR as well.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.