Social Cybersecurity Chapter 13: Casestudy with COVID-19 Pandemic

TL;DR

This case study applies social cybersecurity tools to analyze COVID-19 related Twitter conversations, revealing complex information operations and bot activities during the early pandemic period.

Contribution

It demonstrates the application of information operation tools to real-world social media data, highlighting elaborate manipulation strategies during COVID-19.

Findings

Detection of extensive bot involvement in information shaping

Identification of coordinated disinformation campaigns

Analysis of social media manipulation tactics during pandemic

Abstract

The purpose of this case study is to leverage the concepts and tools presented in the preceding chapters and apply them in a real world social cybersecurity context. With the COVID-19 pandemic emerging as a defining event of the 21st Century and a magnet for disinformation maneuver, we have selected the pandemic and its related social media conversation to focus our efforts on. This chapter therefore applies the tools of information operation maneuver, bot detection and characterization, meme detection and characterization, and information mapping to the COVID-19 related conversation on Twitter. This chapter uses these tools to analyze a stream containing 206 million tweets from 27 million unique users from 15 March 2020 to 30 April 2020. Our results shed light on elaborate information operations that leverage the full breadth of the BEND maneuvers and use bots for important shaping operations.