The role of bot squads in the political propaganda on Twitter

This paper investigates the role of social bots in political propaganda on Twitter, focusing on the discourse surrounding migration from North Africa to Italy. Using an entropy-based null model to filter out random noise, the study reveals that bots play a central role in amplifying significant content. Key findings include the disproportionate number of bots among the followers of influential accounts ('hubs') and the existence of 'bot squads' – groups of bots that follow and retweet the same set of hubs, likely to increase the visibility of their messages. This coordinated bot activity is particularly evident among right-wing political accounts.

Guido Caldarelli, Rocco De Nicola, Fabio Del Vigna, Marinella Petrocchi, Fabio Saracco