Characterizing Retweet Bots: The Case of Black Market Accounts. (arXiv:2112.02366v3 [cs.SI] UPDATED)

Malicious Twitter bots are detrimental to public discourse on social media.
Past studies have looked at spammers, fake followers, and astroturfing bots,
but retweet bots, which artificially inflate content, are not well understood.
In this study, we characterize retweet bots that have been uncovered by
purchasing retweets from the black market. We detect whether they are fake or
genuine accounts involved in inauthentic activities and what they do in order
to appear legitimate. We also analyze their differences from human-controlled …

accounts bots case market