Echoes of Automation: How Bots Shaped Political Discourse in Brazil

TL;DR

This study analyzes over 315 million tweets to understand how political bots in Brazil influence discourse, showing they amplify narrow agendas and differ in behavior and sentiment from human users.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive empirical analysis of bot activity, sentiment, and thematic focus during Brazil's recent elections, highlighting their role in political discourse manipulation.

Findings

Bots rely more on retweets and replies, especially after 2018.

Bots maintain a narrower emotional tone compared to humans.

Bots focus on Bolsonaro-centric messaging, while humans discuss broader topics.

Abstract

In an era where social media platforms are central to political communication, the activity of bots raises pressing concerns about amplification, manipulation, and misinformation. Drawing on more than 315 million tweets posted from August 2018 to June 2022, we examine behavioural patterns, sentiment dynamics, and the thematic focus of bot- versus human-generated content spanning the 2018 Brazilian presidential election and the lead-up to the 2022 contest. Our analysis shows that bots relied disproportionately on retweets and replies, with reply activity spiking after the 2018 election, suggesting tactics of conversational infiltration and amplification. Sentiment analysis indicates that bots maintained a narrower emotional tone, in contrast to humans, whose sentiment fluctuated more strongly with political events. Topic modelling further reveals bots' repetitive, Bolsonaro-centric messaging, while human users engaged with a broader range of candidates, civic concerns, and personal reflections. These findings underscore bots' role as amplifiers of narrow agendas and their potential to distort online political discourse.