@article{e194d00444e942a3812da889516c50ef,
title = "Why Botter: How Pro-Government Bots Fight Opposition in Russia",
abstract = "There is abundant anecdotal evidence that nondemocratic regimes are harnessing new digital technologies known as social media bots to facilitate policy goals. However, few previous attempts have been made to systematically analyze the use of bots that are aimed at a domestic audience in autocratic regimes. We develop two alternative theoretical frameworks for predicting the use of pro-regime bots: one which focuses on bot deployment in response to offline protest and the other in response to online protest. We then test the empirical implications of these frameworks with an original collection of Twitter data generated by Russian pro-government bots. We find that the online opposition activities produce stronger reactions from bots than offline protests. Our results provide a lower bound on the effects of bots on the Russian Twittersphere and highlight the importance of bot detection for the study of political communication on social media in nondemocratic regimes.",
author = "Denis Stukal and Sergey Sanovich and Richard Bonneau and Tucker, {Joshua A.}",
note = "Funding Information: We want to thank four anonymous reviewers. We are also very grateful to Andrey Akhremenko, Neal Beck, Noah Buckley, Charles Crabtree, Olga Gasparyan, Holger Kern, Tomila Lankina, Umberto Mignozzetti, Molly Roberts, Alexander Petrov, Arturas Rozenas, Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld, and the participants of the Carnegie Post-Communist Politics Workshop at NYU and Columbia (May 10, 2019) for great feedback and helpful suggestions. Sanovich gratefully acknowledges NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia Visiting Fellowship (May–June, 2019). Stukal acknowledges support from the Russian Science Foundation grant No. 21-78-00079. Tucker gratefully acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation (Award #1756657). The NYU Center for Social Media and Politics (csmapnyu.org), which supported this research, is generously funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Charles Koch Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, the Siegel Family Endowment, and NYU{\textquoteright}s Office of the Provost. Stukal conducted all of the analysis and prepared the first draft of the manuscript. Stukal and Tucker developed the research design. Bonneau and Tucker oversaw the data collection process. Sanovich designed and oversaw the human labeling of Twitter accounts. All of the authors participated in revising and editing of the manuscript. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} ",
year = "2022",
month = aug,
day = "21",
doi = "10.1017/S0003055421001507",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "116",
pages = "843--857",
journal = "American Political Science Review",
issn = "0003-0554",
publisher = "Cambridge University Press",
number = "3",
}