Harass, mislead, & polarize: An analysis of Twitter political bots’ tactics in targeting the immigration debate before the 2018 U.S. midterm election

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the interaction and messaging tactics of political Twitter bots before an election. We analyzed the strategies of influential bots seeking to affect the immigration debate before the 2018 U.S. midterm elections. Our findings reveal that the 10 most influential bots in our dataset all presented an anti-immigration viewpoint, and both posted original tweets and retweeted other bot accounts’ tweets to give a false sense of authenticity and anti-immigration consensus. Bots’ messages relied heavily on negative emotional appeals by spreading harassing language and disinformation likely intended to evoke fear toward immigrants. Such accounts also employed polarizing language to entrench political group identity and provoke partisanship. Our findings help to understand the interaction and messaging tactics employed by political bots and suggest potential strategies that may be employed to counter their effectiveness.

KEYWORDS:

• Bots
• computational propaganda
• disinformation
• twitter
• election

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for the invaluable feedback and qualitative coding completed by the following individuals, many of whom were affiliated with the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley: Gurshaant Bassi, Rachael Cornejo, Jennifer Cortez, Maria Di Franco Quinonez, Antonio Flores,Niusha Hajikhodaverdikhan, Christina Haley, Eliza Hollingsworth, Edward Kang, Ravleen Kaur, Maryam Khan, Kellie Levine, Vyoma Raman, Samantha Rubinstein, Samiha Shaheed, Gurbir Singh, Anish Vankayalapati, Michaela Vatcheva, Levi Vonk, and Andrew Wang.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS) and the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia de Mexico (CONACYT).

Notes on contributors

Brandie Nonnecke

Brandie Nonnecke (PhD, The Pennsylvania State University) is the director of the CITRIS Policy Lab at UC Berkeley.

Gisela Perez de Acha (MS, UC Berkeley) is a senior reporter at the Investigative Reporting Program, Berkeley.

Annette Choi (MS, UC Berkeley) is a graphics reporter at POLITICO Pro.

Camille Crittenden (PhD, Duke University) is the executive director of CITRIS and the Banatao Institute, University of California.

Fernando Ignacio Gutiérrez Cortés (PhD, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana) is a professor in the School of Humanities and Education at Tecnológico de Monterrey.

Alejandro Martin del Campo (PhD, Tecnológico de Monterrey) is a professor of media and digital culture at Tecnologico de Monterrey.

Oscar Mario Miranda-Villanueva (PhD, Tecnológico de Monterrey) is a professor in media communications at Tecnologico de Monterrey.