Characterizing the Use of Images in State-Sponsored Information Warfare Operations by Russian Trolls on Twitter
Characterizing the Use of Images in State-Sponsored Information Warfare Operations by Russian Trolls on Twitter
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推特上俄罗斯巨魔在国家资助的信息战行动中使用图像的特征
DOI：
10.1609/icwsm.v14i1.7342
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发表时间：
2019
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Jeremy Blackburn
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Savvas Zannettou;T. Caulfield;B. Bradlyn;Emiliano De Cristofaro;G. Stringhini;Jeremy Blackburn
国家支持的组织越来越多地与旨在利用社交媒体进行信息战和操纵舆论的努力联系在一起。通常，他们的活动依赖于他们控制的一些社交网络账户，也就是巨魔，这些账户伪装成普通用户发布信息并与其他用户互动。这些账户经常使用图片和模因以及文字内容，以增加他们帖子的参与度和可信度。在这篇文章中，我们通过分析俄罗斯互联网研究机构控制的账户在Twitter上发布的180万张图片的基本事实数据集，首次对国家赞助账户分享的图片进行了研究。首先，我们分析了图片的内容以及它们的发布活动。然后，使用霍克斯过程，我们量化了他们对流行的网络社区的影响，比如Twitter、Reddit、4chan的政治不正确论坛(/pol/)和关于图片传播的Gab。我们发现，俄罗斯巨魔广泛的图片发布活动与现实世界的事件(例如，夏洛茨维尔的Unite the Right集会)不谋而合，并揭示了他们的目标以及通过图片传播的内容。最后，我们发现，巨魔在传播与政治有关的形象方面比其他形象更有效。
State-sponsored organizations are increasingly linked to efforts aimed to exploit social media for information warfare and manipulating public opinion. Typically, their activities rely on a number of social network accounts they control, aka trolls, that post and interact with other users disguised as “regular” users. These accounts often use images and memes, along with textual content, in order to increase the engagement and the credibility of their posts.In this paper, we present the first study of images shared by state-sponsored accounts by analyzing a ground truth dataset of 1.8M images posted to Twitter by accounts controlled by the Russian Internet Research Agency. First, we analyze the content of the images as well as their posting activity. Then, using Hawkes Processes, we quantify their influence on popular Web communities like Twitter, Reddit, 4chan's Politically Incorrect board (/pol/), and Gab, with respect to the dissemination of images. We find that the extensive image posting activity of Russian trolls coincides with real-world events (e.g., the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville), and shed light on their targets as well as the content disseminated via images. Finally, we show that the trolls were more effective in disseminating politics-related imagery than other images.