Technology
Recognizing and Countering Astroturfing in Online Political Campaigns
Quick fact
In 2020, researchers found that a single astroturfing operation on Twitter generated nearly a quarter of all tweets about a key political topic, making it seem like widespread grassroots enthusiasm when it was really orchestrated by a few actors.
Why this is interesting
Have you ever seen a hashtag trending that seems to have unanimous public support, only to discover it was created by a handful of fake accounts?