That there is a large degree of online manipulation of social media content is unmistakable, but I suspect if you asked many who the culprits were, bots would feature high in many people’s lists.  These automated accounts are often created by foreign agencies to manipulate and distort the debate, but research from the University of Edinburgh suggests they may not be as influential as we think.

“Millions of people rely on social media as their main news source, which means that information they see there can have a major bearing on the views they hold,” the researchers explain. “Our study suggests that fears of bots spreading harmful messages on social media might be overrated.”

Instead, the researchers found that Twitter users with more than 10,000 followers are far more influential on the opinion of others.

Changing opinions

While previous studies have shown that bots are actively involved in spreading misinformation online, the researchers wanted to test whether bots actually influence the opinions we form.  They tracked discourse across seven contentious topics between over 4,000 Twitter users.  The conversations between these users were then used to examine the interactions between a larger group of over 19 million other accounts, some of which were bot accounts.

The researchers then compared the influence bots had on the behavior of users, in terms of things such as comments, likes, and retweets, compared to the accounts of influencers or famous people.

The results revealed that bots actually had a limited impact on the opinions people had on the various topics.  Indeed, of the accounts that did influence people’s opinions, bots accounted for just 10% of them.

By contrast, people with over 10,000 followers accounted for well over half of the accounts that were actually shaping people’s views.  What’s more, this rose to over 70% when the influencers were exposing people to negative messages.

“Our findings show that influencers and celebrities have the most impact on opinions, not bots,” the researchers conclude. “This is the case for various topics, and may also apply to current concerns about bots that spread COVID-19 conspiracy theories and views opposing vaccines.“