IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/tjisxx/v28y2019i4p394-412.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are social bots a real threat? An agent-based model of the spiral of silence to analyse the impact of manipulative actors in social networks

Author

Listed:
  • Björn Ross
  • Laura Pilz
  • Benjamin Cabrera
  • Florian Brachten
  • German Neubaum
  • Stefan Stieglitz

Abstract

Information systems such as social media strongly influence public opinion formation. Additionally, communication on the internet is shaped by individuals and organisations with various aims. This environment has given rise to phenomena such as manipulated content, fake news, and social bots. To examine the influence of manipulated opinions, we draw on the spiral of silence theory and complex adaptive systems. We translate empirical evidence of individual behaviour into an agent-based model and show that the model results in the emergence of a consensus on the collective level. In contrast to most previous approaches, this model explicitly represents interactions as a network. The most central actor in the network determines the final consensus 60–70% of the time. We then use the model to examine the influence of manipulative actors such as social bots on public opinion formation. The results indicate that, in a highly polarised setting, depending on their network position and the overall network density, bot participation by as little as 2–4% of a communication network can be sufficient to tip over the opinion climate in two out of three cases. These findings demonstrate a mechanism by which bots could shape the norms adopted by social media users.

Suggested Citation

  • Björn Ross & Laura Pilz & Benjamin Cabrera & Florian Brachten & German Neubaum & Stefan Stieglitz, 2019. "Are social bots a real threat? An agent-based model of the spiral of silence to analyse the impact of manipulative actors in social networks," European Journal of Information Systems, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(4), pages 394-412, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:tjisxx:v:28:y:2019:i:4:p:394-412
    DOI: 10.1080/0960085X.2018.1560920
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0960085X.2018.1560920
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/0960085X.2018.1560920?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Malik, Nishtha & Kar, Arpan Kumar & Tripathi, Shalini Nath & Gupta, Shivam, 2023. "Exploring the impact of fairness of social bots on user experience," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    2. David G. Green, 2023. "Emergence in complex networks of simple agents," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 18(3), pages 419-462, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:tjisxx:v:28:y:2019:i:4:p:394-412. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/tjis .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.