Twitter Bots Influence on the Russo-Ukrainian War During the 2022 Italian General Elections

TL;DR

This study analyzes Twitter activity related to the Russo-Ukrainian war and Italian politics, revealing that approximately 12% of comments were from bots that manipulated public opinion during the 2022 Italian general election.

Contribution

It provides an empirical analysis of bot activity and influence on Twitter during a significant geopolitical event and election, highlighting the extent of manipulation.

Findings

12% of commenters were identified as bots

Bots distorted war-related discussions on Twitter

Bots influenced public opinion before the election

Abstract

In February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This event had global repercussions, especially on the political decisions of European countries. As expected, the role of Italy in the conflict became a major campaign issue for the Italian General Election held on 25 September 2022. Politicians frequently use Twitter to communicate during political campaigns, but bots often interfere and attempt to manipulate elections. Hence, understanding whether bots influenced public opinion regarding the conflict and, therefore, the elections is essential. In this work, we investigate how Italian politics responded to the Russo-Ukrainian conflict on Twitter and whether bots manipulated public opinion before the 2022 general election. We first analyze 39,611 tweets of six major political Italian parties to understand how they discussed the war during the period February-December 2022. Then, we focus on the 360,823 comments under the last month's posts before the elections, discovering around 12% of the commenters are bots. By examining their activities, it becomes clear they both distorted how war topics were treated and influenced real users during the last month before the elections.