Social bots are undermining trust in social media. They spread low-credibility content (Shao et al., 2018), so-called fake news (Vosoughi, Roy, & Aral, 2018), and spam (Bruns et al., 2018). However, most research analyses data based on the active sharing of links, keywords, or hashtags rather than assessing the longer-term presence of bots as an integral part of platforms. To address this gap, we present what to our knowledge is the first study that assesses the prevalence, influence, and roles of automated accounts in a Twitter follow network on a national scale: the German-speaking Twittersphere. This work in progress allows us to analyse the long-term structural role, impact, and possible audience of bots beyond the context of single events and topics.

2. Background

6. Step 1: Drawing a Sample

10. Keyword extraction with chi-squared criterion
active
accounts keywords top accounts tag
2015
e3, stream, xd, e32019, nintendo, twitch, game, crossing, pc, zelda, animal, gameplay, cyberpunk2077,
games, switch, xbox, trailer, cyberpunk, gaming, xboxe3, uff, nice, awesome, keanu, pk, live, nen, lol,
mega
unge, dagibee, Gronkh, MelinaSophie, LeFloid,
iBlali, Taddl, rewinside, HandIOfIBlood, PietSmiet
YouTubers &
Gaming
1855
berlin, innen (female suffix), spd (German party), berliner, study, companies, discuss, cdu (party),
demand, topics, important, federal government, german, digitisation, topic, has been, annefrank,
climate protection, more, june, shows, germany, interview, politics, brandenburg
tazgezwitscher, Die_Gruenen, Tagesspiegel,
c_lindner, gutjahr, dunjahayali, sigmargabriel,
sixtus, HeikoMaas, spdde German politics
1414
women’s strike, switzerland, swiss people, glarner, svp (Swiss party), bern, women’s strike2019, zurich,
canton, grand, basel, national council, women
NZZ, 20min, viktorgiacobbo, Blickch,
tagesanzeiger, srfnews, MikeMuellerLate,
watson_news, migros, srf3
Swiss politics /
women's strike
1044
season, trainer, bundesliga, new arrival, player, dfb, fc, gerest, em, exchanges, estonia, exchange,
transfer, goal, victory, team, wm, cup, liga
DFB_Team, FCBayern, ToniKroos, MarioGoetze,
esmuellert_, Podolski10, Manuel_Neuer,
Bundesliga_DE, ZDFsport, JB17Official German football
767
övp (Austrian party), spö (Austrian party), fpö (Austrian party), vienna, austria, bierlein, oenr,
austria‘s, ibiza, viennese, strache, kickl, turquoise, hofer, parliament, national council, zib2, abdullah,
mandate, election campaign, centre, chancellor (female form), heinz, austrian, glyphosate, proposal,
blue
florianklenk, sebastiankurz, IngridThurnher,
kesslermichael, HannoSettele, vanderbellen,
Gawhary, HBrandstaetter, HHumorlos,
michelreimon Austrian politics
376
dessau, roßlau, afd (German (far-)right-wing party), görlitz, islam, raped, migrants, asylum seeker,
dangerous person, rejected person, sed, wippel, patriots, greta, niger, hosni, strongest, green,
fridayforfuture, african, rosslau, left, gretathunberg, crime, old parties, merkel, radical left, greens,
habeck, keep silent, tear apart, vote, girl, refugee, saxony, rape, maas, citizen, islamistic, sexual
DonJoschi, AfD, MSF_austria, Alice_Weidel,
SteinbachErika, Joerg_Meuthen, Beatrix_vStorch,
GrumpyMerkel, krone_at
hard right /
xenophobia /
migration /
refugees

17. Step 3: Rate suspected Bots with a
human rater

19. Example Accounts
Bots posting images / quotes

22. Example Accounts
Follow Back Bots

25. Example Accounts
Content Linking / Own Website Linking

28. Spam / Possibly Malign

30. Conclusion
● Prevalence of (suspected) bot accounts in line with prior analyses 1
● Low centrality of automated accounts (usually outside central clusters)
● Bots are primarily located outside of politics and news clusters
● Botometer: false-positive rate higher than selected threshold (63% vs. 75% set
threshold) according to human ratings
● But: good approach to inductively explore bot-categories and test bot-detection
methods
Overall, the negative impact of automated accounts seems rather low in our
sample.
1
Varol, O., Ferrara, E., Davis, C. A., Menczer, F., & Flammini, A. (2017). Online Human-Bot Interactions: Detection,
Estimation, and Characterization. In International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media. Retrieved from
https://aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM17/paper/view/15587/14817