Acting the Part: Examining Information Operations Within #BlackLivesMatter Discourse AHMER ARIF, Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of Washington LEO G. STEWART, Information School, University of Washington KATE STARBIRD, Human Centered Design...
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Acting the Part: Examining Information Operations Within #BlackLivesMatter Discourse AHMER ARIF, Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of Washington LEO G. STEWART, Information School, University of Washington KATE STARBIRD, Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of Washington Information campaigns that seek to tap into and manipulate online discussions are becoming an issue of increasing public concern. Social media companies are now problematizing some campaigns, specifically those that intentionally obscure their origins, as ‘information operations’. This research examines how social media accounts linked to one such operation—allegedly conducted by Russia’s Internet Research Agency— participated in an online discourse about the #BlackLivesMatter movement and police-related shootings in the U.S. during 2016. We study the interactions of these accounts within the online crowd using interpretative analysis of a network graph based on retweet flows in combination wit
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