Propaganda in digital communication, twitter predictive module based on user behavior

Abstract

“In the truth there is no news and in the news there is no truth”, a soviet-era political joke, still applies to the present times. This study will highlight all the communication forms and how they are used nowadays as a tool for propaganda especially in the digital world. When website traffic, clicks, and reach are at stake, information disorder in the form of misleading/fake information would be used as a tool to enhance data metrics across the digital world. This study tackles information disorder during all its phases: creation, production, communication, and the user experience through the process. First, the disruptive user behavior is modeled, and as a classifier, that categorizes Twitter users based on their behaviors, is built. Second, the propaganda detection module is built, which given a trending keywords on Twitter, determines whether or not it is part of a propaganda campaign. This approach takes a hybrid form since the analysis is based on the combination of all four phases of information disorder.”