Amplification of social messages and symbols play a primary part in the transmission of narratives and ideas over time. The frequency of exposure to an idea as well as multiple vehicles of transmission can saturate mediums and affect perception across large groups. Inside homogenous online networks, the repetition of similar messages can compound and normalize or popularize specific narratives and norms. Within a framework of political homophily, fake Twitter personas infiltrate groups, spread, and repeat messages which can increase ideological homogeneity. Examining over 20 thousand fake twitter accounts designed by the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) to influence U.S. election cycles, we suggest that echo-systems can be orchestrated. We assert that a primary method of these fake personas is to use prominent accounts to create new messages while less prominent accounts repeat those messages across multiple groups, resulting in online, ideological echo-chambers.
Researchers: Ori Swed, Jeffery Baptist, Dimitri Volchenkov, Sachith Eranga Dassanayaka
Presentation: American Statistical Association Conference on Statistical Practice. Identify the actors in the Russian Information Operation Networks and Three-Dimensional Geometric Visualization of Activities
Presentation: American Statistical Association Conference on Statistical Practice. A Neural Network model to map the Russian Information Operation Networks and Three-Dimensional Geometric Visualization
Presentation: The Southern Political Science Association (SPSA) Annual Meeting. Mapping the Russian Information Operation Networks to a Neural Network predictive model
Presentation at the Virtual Coffee Hour at the Peace, War, & Social Conflict Section 2020.
Troll Talk: Capital and Habitus within the Internet Research Agency. Jeff Baptist and Ori Swed, Texas Tech University.
Presentation at the American Sociological Association annual conference 2020.
Manufacturing Echo-Systems: Message Amplification and Reverberation of Key Individuals Within False Twitter Persona Networks, Ori Swed and Jeffery Baptist, Texas Tech University
Meeting Recording:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jx-NdvNLs1BETK2JkJLh9QZNpC4aAMtK/view