Organisation finds 60,000 messages containing hate speech, Islamophobia shared by suspected bot accounts
\n london
\nBot-like social media accounts have spread \u201cdisinformation and hate\u201d in tens of thousands of posts viewed an estimated 150 million times during the UK general election campaign, a watchdog investigation revealed Tuesday.
\nGlobal Witness found 10 suspected bot profiles on X (formerly Twitter) have shared more than 60,000 messages containing conspiracy theories and violent hate speech, including Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, homophobia and transphobia, before Thursday\u00b4s vote.
\nThe NGO assessed that the accounts, which also promoted praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin, may have had \u201can oversize influence\u201d given their prolific output.
\nBot profiles are run by computers but have been programmed to look like human-run accounts.
\nThe findings follow warnings that the integrity of key elections around the world this year could be threatened by rapid advancements in cyber-tech, particularly AI, and increasing friction between major nations.
\nUK Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden warned on Sunday that hostile actors such as Russia were seeking to influence the country\u2019s democratic process after reports emerged of Facebook pages spreading identical pro-Kremlin talking points.
\nAva Lee, campaign leader at Global Witness, urged X and other social media companies to \u201cclean up their platforms and put our democracies before profit\u201d.
\n\u201cPolitical discussion online is often toxic \u2014 we all know that. But when we go on social media, we believe we\u2019re seeing what real people think,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cWhen that\u2019s not true, when the conversation may have been influenced by someone who has paid for bots to spread division or to get a particular party into power, our democracy is in jeopardy.\u201d
\nOvertly party political
\nGlobal Witness researchers identified the sample of suspected bot accounts by searching for posts and hashtags on climate change and migration \u2014 two hot button issues often subject to disinformation.
\nThe team then identified and tracked at least 10 profiles pumping out scores or hundreds of posts daily on these issues in the weeks after the UK election date announcement on May 22.
\nEight were overtly party political, clearly aligning themselves for or against a particular party by using its logos as their profile picture or regularly re-posting its content or hashtags, according to the NGO.
\nIt did not find evidence that any UK party was paying for, using or promoting the bots as part of their campaigns.
\nThe content shared by the suspect accounts was overwhelmingly extreme, Global Witness said.
\n\u201cSome spread anti-Semitism and transphobia. Some state that climate change is a \u2018hoax\u2019, that vaccines have created a \u2018genocide\u2019,\u201d it added.
\nOne of the 10 profiles was recently deleted, but the other nine remained active as Global Witness released its findings.
\nIt urged X, formerly known as Twitter, to investigate the accounts, which likely violate its own policies.
\nGlobal Witness also demanded X invest more in \u201cprotecting our democratic debate from manipulation\u201d.
\nX did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Organisation finds 60,000 messages containing hate speech, Islamophobia shared by suspected bot accounts london Bot-like social media accounts have spread \u201cdisinformation and hate\u201d in tens of thousands of posts viewed an estimated 150 million times during the UK general election campaign, a watchdog investigation revealed Tuesday. Global Witness found 10 suspected bot profiles on X […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416265,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-416253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n