According to a new study, it can take seconds for Twitter to spread false news across the internet. But in addition, the study also examined "the critical role played by so-called 'influencers:' celebrities and others with large Twitter followings who can contribute to the spread of bad information via retweets." The bots get the ball rolling, but the influencers finish the job. Bot owners depend on this. "The researchers found that, far from being random, those bots actively targeted influential Twitter users with negative content to create social conflict. Those users often did not realize they were being targeted and hence retweeted and helped spread the misinformation."
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