Trolls, Bots, and Whatnots

摘要

Trolls and bots are often used to alter, disrupt, or even silence legitimate online conversations artificially. Disrupting and corrupting the online civic engagement process creates ethical challenges and undermines social and political structures. Trolls and bots often amplify spurious deceptive content as their activity artificially inflates support for an issue or a public figure, thus creating mass misperception. In addressing this concern, the chapter examines how trolls (humans) and bots (robots that exhibit human-like communication behavior) affect online engagement that perpetuates deception, misinformation, and fake news. In doing so, the chapter reviews the literature on online trolling and chatbots to present a list of research-based recommendations for identifying (deception detection) and reacting (deception suppression) to trolls and bots.