Thread by @marcowenjones

A few important notes on this great article. 1) I would caution there is a prevailing narrative about Saudi accounts, risks creating a straw man. 2) it is useful to make a distinction between bots and trolls as trolling is behavioural not computational; Trolls

https://twitter.com/marcowenjones/status/1369250251601764354

could be hypernationalist real or paid real people attacking those who disagree 3) Saying someone is a real human risks conflating that with a troll whose *unknown* function might be to artificially generate support 5) As bots and trolls evolve it becomes more difficult to do

anomaly detection at scale and be sure of how many accounts have been missed in analysis 6) Twitter's own suspensions aren't a reliable or comprehensive barometer of what is and isn't definitely a bot - or troll 7) co-ordinated inauthentic behaviour includes trolls (real humans)

8) As the authors point out and has been pointed out before, the digital space has been co-opted as a space in which dissent is not tolerated and thus using the term 'genuine' accounts risks minimising those who do not speak out 9) There are many behaviours that remain dubious

I.e. in the khashoggi case, despite the low level of bots, it remains unclear why Khashoggis name trended the least in Saudi while the initial Saudi narrative dominated the Arabic content 10) Here the term digital authoritarianism reflects the low degree of plurality and

successful ability to centrally control messaging, both with and without the use of computational methods 11) Another key aspect is using Twitter accounts (genuine or otherwise) and Digital power (population/mobilepentration/social media take up) to project power across arabic

content globally. 12) Another aspect of digital authoritarianism is the ability to project propaganda, which is separate from veracity, and more about persuading on an ideological level through use of flies (useful term that refers accounts engaged in propaganda or harassment)

And is less concerned with distinctions about automation 13) The use of real influencers to promote disinformation with little accountability is a cornerstone of disinfo campaigns in the region- irrespective of computational methods 14) Campaigns are temporal and often ephemeral

And thus longitudinal studies can diminish the apparent scale of automation just as case studies can amplify them