Honors Thesis Archive
| Author | Braeden Bowen |
|---|---|
| Title | “It Doesn’t Matter Now Who’s Right and Who’s Not:” A Model To Evaluate and Detect Bot Behavior on Twitter |
| Department | Computer Science & Political Science |
| Advisors | Tyler Highlander and Staci Rhine |
| Year | 2021 |
| Honors | University Honors |
| Full Text | View Thesis (1272 KB) |
| Abstract | The 2019 Mueller Report revealed a campaign by the Russian Internet Research Agency to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election and insert systemic distrust in Western democracy. The campaign engaged in “information warfare” using false accounts, or bots, to prey on inherent social vulnerabilities that are amplified by the novelty and anonymity of social media, such as echo chambers and the rapid spread of fake news. This thesis explores the aims, methods, effects, and behavioral patterns of bots. It also proposes BotWise, a model designed to distill average behavior on the social media platform Twitter from a set of real users and compare that data against novel input. |
Return to Main Honors Thesis Archive Page
Back