Noan Sitthitheerarat

The project examines several large datasets political tweets in English, Russian, Korean, Farsi, German, Spanish, Bengali, Catalan, and Arabic posted by accounts that have been identified by Twitter as participating in an astroturfing campaign, i.e. an hidden attempt to influence public opinion by pretending to be ordinary users. We will examine how the behavior of participants differs from that of regular users and accounts, and how the differing patterns can help us identify ongoing efforts to secretly influence online public opinion worldwide. We currently have data on campaigns trying to influence public opinion in the US, South Korea, Venezuela, Russia, Germany, Iran, Bangladesh, Spain (Catalonia) and the Arabic-speaking world. The alleged perpetrators are supposedly connected to the South Korean, Russian, Iranian, Venezuelan, Bangladesh, and Chinese government, respectively. This project is an extension of "Political astroturfing in South Korea: examining how the secret service manipulated twitter during the 2012 presidential election." It is supported by a UROP grant, and students will therefore be able to suggest what additional data should be acquired to analyze the campaigns and their impact.