Screening Out Social Bots Interference: Are There Any Silver Bullets?

Abstract

Social networks are a primary source of news and information that can be steered, distorted, and influenced. Recent scandals such as the one involving Cambridge Analytics proved that social media users are prone to such direct manipulation. Among the weapons available to perform these anti-democracy attacks, Social Bots are beyond question the most powerful one. These autonomous entities constitute coordinated armies that sneakily manipulate and deceive real users. Thus, our research identifies five major challenges that the research community needs to face toward tackling Social Bots activities in four individual but comparable scenarios. To address these key challenges, we propose, elaborate, and evaluate a mix of remedies in the form of a proof-of-concept platform combining the agility of artificial intelligence with the expertise of human analysts to detect and shield against Social Bots interference.