Talking to Trolls—How Users Respond to a Coordinated Information Operation and Why They’re So Supportive
Dublin Core
Title
Talking to Trolls—How Users Respond to a Coordinated Information Operation and Why They’re So Supportive
Subject
SIDE model, Disinformation, Internet Research Agency, User Engagement, Twitter
Description
This research explored how users interacted with inauthentic social media accounts with the goal of
gaining insight into tactics employed by state-backed disinformation efforts. We combine hand
coding with natural-language processing to measure the ways in which users talked with and about the accounts employed by the Russian-affiliated Internet Research Agency in the month before the
2016 U.S. Election. We find that user mentions were overwhelming supportive of the IRA accounts,
belying the standard characterization of these personas as “trolls.” This pattern is particularly
strong for the more ideological troll types, suggesting that a strategy of building homophilic
connections with like-minded people was central to the IRA campaign. This strategy seems to work—on days that the personas’ mentions were more supportive, they received more engagement.
gaining insight into tactics employed by state-backed disinformation efforts. We combine hand
coding with natural-language processing to measure the ways in which users talked with and about the accounts employed by the Russian-affiliated Internet Research Agency in the month before the
2016 U.S. Election. We find that user mentions were overwhelming supportive of the IRA accounts,
belying the standard characterization of these personas as “trolls.” This pattern is particularly
strong for the more ideological troll types, suggesting that a strategy of building homophilic
connections with like-minded people was central to the IRA campaign. This strategy seems to work—on days that the personas’ mentions were more supportive, they received more engagement.
Creator
Darren L. Linvill, Patrick L. Warren, & Amanda E. Moore
Source
https://academic.oup.com/jcmc/article/27/1/zmab022/6445224
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Date
20 October 2021
Contributor
Sri Wahyuni
Format
PDF
Language
English
Type
Text
Coverage
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 00 (2021)
Files
Collection
Citation
Darren L. Linvill, Patrick L. Warren, & Amanda E. Moore, “Talking to Trolls—How Users Respond to a Coordinated Information Operation and Why They’re So Supportive,” Repository Horizon University Indonesia, accessed October 31, 2025, https://repository.horizon.ac.id/items/show/8731.