Social network are nowadays a primary source of news and information that can be steered, distorted, and influenced. Recent scandals such as the Cambridge Analytics proved that social media users are highly prone to such direct manipulation. Among the weapons available to perform these anti-democracy attacks, Social Bots are beyond question the most powerful one. These autonomous entities constitute coordinated armies which sneakily manipulate and deceive real users. In this context, our research identifies five major challenges that the research community needs to face toward tackling Social Bots activities in four individual but comparable scenarios. To address these key challenges, we propose, elaborate, and evaluate on a mix of remedies in the form of a proof-of-concept platform that combines the agility of Artificial Intelligence with the expertise of human analysts to detect and shield against Social Bots interference.

This work would not have been possible without the inestimable contribution of:

• Mattia Zago
• Pantaleone Nespoli
• Dimitrios Papamartzivanos
• Manuel Gil Pérez
• Georgios Kambourakis
• Gregorio Martínez Pérez

Mattia Zago, Pantaleone Nespoli, Dimitrios Papamartzivanos, Manuel Gil Pérez, Félix Gómez Mármol, Georgios Kambourakis, Gregorio Martínez Pérez, «Screening out social bots interference: are there any silver bullet?«, IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 57, no. 8, pp. 98-104, 2019

• Journal: IEEE Communications Magazine
• Category: Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
• Rank: 7/266
• Quartile: Q1
• Impact Factor: 11.052