Researchers Say They've Uncovered a Massive Facebook Bot Farm From the 2020 Election
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:
Researchers say they've uncovered a massive Facebook bot farm from the 2020 election:
A group of security researchers say they've unmasked a massive bot farm that aimed to shape public opinion on Facebook during the heat of the 2020 presidential election.
According to Paul Bischoff of Comparitech, a British cybersecurity company, the network includes 13,775 unique Facebook accounts that each posted roughly 15 times per month, for an output of more than 50,000 posts a week. The accounts appear to have been used for political manipulation," Bischoff says, with roughly half the posts being related to political topics and another 17 percent related to COVID-19. Each account has a profile photo and friends list-likely consisting of other bots, the researchers suggest-and they've joined specific Facebook groups where their posts are more likely to be seen and discussed by legitimate users."
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