Bogus Twitter Accounts
“Data-mining techniques reveal fake Twitter accounts that give the impression of a vast political movement.” Technology Review uncovers an online political scandal.
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“Researchers have found evidence that political campaigns and special-interest groups are using scores of fake Twitter accounts to create the impression of broad grass-roots political expression. A team at Indiana University used data-mining and network-analysis techniques to detect the activity. ‘We think this technique must be common,’ says Filippo Menczer, an associate professor at Indiana University and one of the principal investigators on the project. ‘Wherever there are lots of eyes looking at screens, spammers will be there; so why not with politics?'”
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