{"id":15712,"date":"2019-10-15T14:38:42","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T14:38:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/?p=15712"},"modified":"2024-12-11T00:53:02","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T00:53:02","slug":"fingerprinting-known-misinformation-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/2019\/10\/15\/fingerprinting-known-misinformation-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Fingerprinting a Known #Misinformation Campaign: Breaking Down the Tactics of the Russian Internet Agency (IRA) in 2016. #SNA #networkscience #elxn43 #cdnpoli #Transparency"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post is part of the Social Media Lab #ELXN43 Transparency Initiative. It’s part one of a two-part post that summarizes our ongoing research on the role of social bots and trolls in our public discourse. The post is an abridge<\/em> version of Dr. Gruzd’s recent talk, “FakeNews” Travels Fast \u2014 How Social Bots and Trolls Are Reshaping Public Debates, at the Dean\u2019s Speaker Series at Ted Rogers School of Management on Oct 7, 2019. You can find the SlideShare here<\/a> and the video here<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s story begins in 2008. This is when a relatively unknown 1st<\/sup> term US Senator from the State of Illinois, Barack Obama, won his first US presidency. The success of Obama\u2019s team can largely be attributed to their use of social media, which allowed them to share information quickly, reach many new potential voters and turn them into supporters and voters. Following Obama\u2019s lead, in the early twenty-tens, politicians in Canada also started to actively use social media – so much so that the Globe & Mail declared the 2011 Federal election as Canada\u2019s first \u201csocial media election.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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However, in just a few years later, in 2016, in his farewell speech, President Obama expressed concerns that social media was becoming a \u201cthreat to democracy.\u201d This statement was ironic coming from a President who will be remembered, among many other firsts) as the \u201cfirst social media President\u201d with his own social media archive. But, his sentiment is understandable, as there is a lot of ambivalence about social media today. When we see its role in popular political uprisings or charitable fundraising campaigns, we recognize it as a force for good. And when we see it is used to recruit terrorists or propagate racism, we condemn it as a malicious, harmful tool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The power of social media to serve as a medium for good or bad was on full display in 2016 during the last U.S. Presidential election and the U.K.\u2019s Brexit referendum. This is when social media was weaponized to spread misinformation in an attempt to undermine democratic processes and influence people\u2019s votes in those countries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Social Network Analysis (SNA) <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At the Social Media Lab, we are interested in studying how misinformation propagates through different online networks. We use a method called Social Network Analysis (SNA) to visualize and track how misinformation spreads on social media platforms such as Twitter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To analyze Twitter data using SNA, we first need to represent it as a network. The first step in this process is to represent Twitter users <\/strong>(individuals or organizations) as nodes; and interactions among users (reply, retweet or mention) as ties<\/strong> between nodes<\/strong>. We can also assign a weight<\/strong> to each tie<\/strong> to represent its strength<\/strong> based on the number of exchanges between a pair of accounts. For example, a single tweet posted by Donald Trump to the @JustinTrudeau and @WhiteHouse accounts can be visualized as a simple network with three nodes and ties going from Trump\u2019s account to the two accounts because both are mentioned in the tweet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n