The Use of Twitter Bots in Russian Political Communication Online

Background

The question of how regimes respond to online opposition has become central to the discussion of politics in the digital age. In this policy memo, we talk about our previous research on Russian bots in order to better explain the nature of this online activity. To understand how Russian efforts shaped online conversations, we study the use of Russian Twitter bots from a collection of tweets about Russian politics from 2014 to 2018. 

Study

This research finds that all four categories of bots studied: pro-Kremlin, pro-opposition, pro-Kyiv, and neutral, are active. It also reveals that pro-Kremlin bots are slightly younger than either pro-opposition or pro-Kyiv bots, and that they were more active than the other types of bots during Russian involvement in the Ukrainian crisis in 2014. Furthermore, all of the political bots are much more likely to retweet content produced by other accounts than the neutral bots, but the neutral bots are more likely to produce tweets that have identical content to those produced by other bots. 

Results

Finally, we find that the organizations/people who retweet Russian political bots are mass media and active Twitter users whose political leanings correspond to the bots’ political orientation. This provides evidence to support the claim that bots are mostly used as amplifiers for political messages.