"Exclusive: Labour election campaign boosted by fake Twitter accounts
Labour’s election campaign is being boosted by fake social media accounts that pump out positive messages about Jeremy Corbyn thousands of times per day, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.
One in eight messages about British politics posted on Twitter are generated by automated accounts known as web robots or “bots”.
Individual accounts each post up to 1,000 messages per day attacking Theresa May or promoting Labour. They are set up to look like personal user accounts to trick other users into thinking real people are backing Labour. Automated accounts also back other parties, but to a far smaller degree.
They were described last night by Oxford University researchers as “worrying” because of the power of automated accounts to “distort” and influence views. Twitter is predominantly used by young people, who are also more likely to be Labour supporters"
Exclusive: Labour election campaign boosted by fake Twitter accounts
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