Twitter bots supporting the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats have almost doubled in the past month ahead of the Swedish election, according to a government agency.
A study of 571,719 tweets sent during March to August showed the number of accounts with automated behavior “increased significantly” in recent weeks, the Swedish defense research agency said.
The bots were 40% more likely to express support for the Sweden Democrats than genuine accounts, according to the agency. The ruling Social Democrats received the most criticism from the bots, but also came under fire from genuine accounts.
In a trend that echoes other recent elections around the world, both the Sweden Democrats and another far-right party, the Alternative for Sweden, received more support both from genuine and automated accounts than the other parties.
The Sweden Democrats party, with a far-right and anti-immigration agenda, has strong levels of support ahead of the September 9 vote, polls suggest, while the center-left Social Democrats party, which has dominated Sweden for decades, is polling below its historical levels.
During the period analyzed in the study, between 6% and 17% of the total content came from bots, the agency said. The variation is caused by Twitter closing down some of the automated accounts for spreading misinformation, according to the agency.
Source: CNN
