Repository logo

Infoscience

  • English
  • French
Log In
Logo EPFL, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne

Infoscience

  • English
  • French
Log In
  1. Home
  2. Academic and Research Output
  3. Conferences, Workshops, Symposiums, and Seminars
  4. Disinformation from the Inside: Combining Machine Learning and Journalism to Investigate Sockpuppet Campaigns
 
conference paper

Disinformation from the Inside: Combining Machine Learning and Journalism to Investigate Sockpuppet Campaigns

Schwartz, Christopher
•
Overdorf, Rebekah  
January 1, 2020
Www'20: Companion Proceedings Of The Web Conference 2020
29th World Wide Web Conference (WWW)

This paper brings together machine learning and investigative journalism to examine sockpuppets accounts, a historical breed of fake accounts that are non-automated and human-controlled. Due to their flexible and human-centered nature, sockpuppets pose a complication for purely technological approaches to detecting and studying fake accounts. We find that as machine learning-based detection methods of bots slowly grow stronger, adversaries engaging in disinformation are turning to such sockpuppets accounts, and in particular a subset of sockpuppets that we call "infiltrators" - those that aim to integrate into a community in order spread disinformation. This represents a new stage in the evolution of the sockpuppet concept: where bots seek to simulate audiences and drown online social media platforms with a particular point of view, infiltrators seek to persuade and assimilate genuine audiences from within. In addition to these insights into infiltrator sockpuppets, combining machine learning and investigative journalism enables learning something more than detection and important patterns of activity: it can also gain a sense of the motivations and reasoning of adversaries who engage in disinformation.

  • Details
  • Metrics
Type
conference paper
DOI
10.1145/3366424.3385777
Web of Science ID

WOS:000697995500151

Author(s)
Schwartz, Christopher
Overdorf, Rebekah  
Date Issued

2020-01-01

Publisher

ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY

Publisher place

New York

Published in
Www'20: Companion Proceedings Of The Web Conference 2020
ISBN of the book

978-1-4503-7024-0

Start page

623

End page

628

Subjects

social networks

•

disinformation

•

sock puppets

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
LSIR  
Event nameEvent placeEvent date
29th World Wide Web Conference (WWW)

Taipei, TAIWAN

Apr 20-24, 2020

Available on Infoscience
October 9, 2021
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/181947
Logo EPFL, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
  • Contact
  • infoscience@epfl.ch

  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Instagram
  • Follow us on LinkedIn
  • Follow us on X
  • Follow us on Youtube
AccessibilityLegal noticePrivacy policyCookie settingsEnd User AgreementGet helpFeedback

Infoscience is a service managed and provided by the Library and IT Services of EPFL. © EPFL, tous droits réservés