{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,4]],"date-time":"2025-09-04T13:20:41Z","timestamp":1756992041500,"version":"3.37.3"},"reference-count":37,"publisher":"Springer Science and Business Media LLC","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,4,10]],"date-time":"2024-04-10T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1712707200000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,4,10]],"date-time":"2024-04-10T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1712707200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000088","name":"Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["2214217"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2214217"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000088","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100002322","name":"CAPES","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["88887.899221\/2023-00"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["88887.899221\/2023-00"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100002322","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100016177","name":"Instituto Nacional de Ci\u00eancia e Tecnologia de Sistemas Complexos","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["PR2-0101-00050.01.00\/15"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["PR2-0101-00050.01.00\/15"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100016177","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["62302319"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["62302319"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100002888","name":"Beijing Municipal Commission of Education","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["KM202210038002"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["KM202210038002"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100002888","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["link.springer.com"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["EPJ Data Sci."],"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title><jats:p>The ongoing debate surrounding the impact of the Internet Research Agency\u2019s (IRA) social media campaign during the 2016 U.S. presidential election has largely overshadowed the involvement of other actors. Our analysis brings to light a substantial group of suspended Twitter users, outnumbering the IRA user group by a factor of 60, who align with the ideologies of the IRA campaign. Our study demonstrates that this group of suspended Twitter accounts significantly influenced individuals categorized as undecided or weak supporters, potentially with the aim of swaying their opinions, as indicated by Granger causality.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1140\/epjds\/s13688-024-00464-3","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,4,10]],"date-time":"2024-04-10T07:01:57Z","timestamp":1712732517000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["Suspended accounts align with the Internet Research Agency misinformation campaign to influence the 2016 US election"],"prefix":"10.1140","volume":"13","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7907-1375","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Matteo","family":"Serafino","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Zhenkun","family":"Zhou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"suffix":"Jr.","given":"Jos\u00e9 S.","family":"Andrade","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3937-3704","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Alexandre","family":"Bovet","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Hern\u00e1n A.","family":"Makse","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,4,10]]},"reference":[{"key":"464_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0079449","volume":"8","author":"J DiGrazia","year":"2013","unstructured":"DiGrazia J, McKelvey K, Bollen J, Rojas F (2013) More tweets, more votes: social media as a quantitative indicator of political behavior. PLoS ONE 8:e79449","journal-title":"PLoS ONE"},{"key":"464_CR2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"204","DOI":"10.1111\/jcc4.12102","volume":"20","author":"N Anstead","year":"2015","unstructured":"Anstead N, O\u2019Loughlin B (2015) Social media analysis and public opinion: the 2010 uk general election. J Comput-Mediat Commun 20:204\u2013220","journal-title":"J Comput-Mediat Commun"},{"key":"464_CR3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/s41598-018-26951-y","volume":"8","author":"A Bovet","year":"2018","unstructured":"Bovet A, Morone F, Makse HA (2018) Validation of Twitter opinion trends with national polling aggregates: hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump. Sci Rep 8:8673","journal-title":"Sci Rep"},{"key":"464_CR4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1071","DOI":"10.1016\/j.tele.2016.03.002","volume":"33","author":"S Ahmed","year":"2016","unstructured":"Ahmed S, Jaidka K, Cho J (2016) The 2014 Indian elections on Twitter: a comparison of campaign strategies of political parties. Telemat Inform 33:1071\u20131087","journal-title":"Telemat Inform"},{"key":"464_CR5","volume":"7","author":"S Maj\u00f3-V\u00e1zquez","year":"2021","unstructured":"Maj\u00f3-V\u00e1zquez S, Congosto M, Nicholls T, Nielsen RK (2021) The role of suspended accounts in political discussion on social media: analysis of the 2017 French, uk and German elections. Soc Media Soc 7:20563051211027202","journal-title":"Soc Media Soc"},{"key":"464_CR6","first-page":"579","volume-title":"Proceedings of the international AAAI conference on web and social media","author":"S Hegelich","year":"2016","unstructured":"Hegelich S, Janetzko D (2016) Are social bots on Twitter political actors? Empirical evidence from a Ukrainian social botnet. In: Proceedings of the international AAAI conference on web and social media, vol 10, pp 579\u2013582"},{"key":"464_CR7","first-page":"297","volume-title":"Proceedings of the international AAAI conference on web and social media","author":"J Ratkiewicz","year":"2011","unstructured":"Ratkiewicz J et al. (2011) Detecting and tracking political abuse in social media. In: Proceedings of the international AAAI conference on web and social media, vol 5, pp 297\u2013304"},{"key":"464_CR8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1140\/epjds\/s13688-022-00330-0","volume":"11","author":"M Bruno","year":"2022","unstructured":"Bruno M, Lambiotte R, Saracco F (2022) Brexit and bots: characterizing the behaviour of automated accounts on Twitter during the uk election. EPJ Data Sci 11:17","journal-title":"EPJ Data Sci"},{"key":"464_CR9","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"e504","DOI":"10.1016\/S2589-7500(20)30227-2","volume":"2","author":"T Burki","year":"2020","unstructured":"Burki T (2020) The online anti-vaccine movement in the age of Covid-19. Lancet Digit Health 2:e504\u2013e505","journal-title":"Lancet Digit Health"},{"key":"464_CR10","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"46","DOI":"10.1353\/jod.2017.0064","volume":"28","author":"JA Tucker","year":"2017","unstructured":"Tucker JA, Theocharis Y, Roberts ME, Barber\u00e1 P (2017) From liberation to turmoil: social media and democracy. J Democr 28:46\u201359","journal-title":"J Democr"},{"key":"464_CR11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ferrara E (2017) Disinformation and social bot operations in the run up to the 2017 french presidential election. arXiv preprint arXiv:1707.00086","DOI":"10.5210\/fm.v22i8.8005"},{"key":"464_CR12","unstructured":"DiResta R et al The tactics & tropes of the internet research agency. https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/5632786-NewKnowledge-Disinformation-Report-Whitepaper. Accessed: 2023-05-25"},{"key":"464_CR13","series-title":"Can\u2019t, and do know","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1093\/oso\/9780190058838.001.0001","volume-title":"Cyberwar: how Russian hackers and trolls helped elect a president: what we don\u2019t","author":"KH Jamieson","year":"2020","unstructured":"Jamieson KH (2020) Cyberwar: how Russian hackers and trolls helped elect a president: what we don\u2019t. Can\u2019t, and do know. Oxford University Press, Oxford"},{"key":"464_CR14","volume-title":"Report on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election","author":"RS Mueller","year":"2019","unstructured":"Mueller RS, Cat MWA (2019) Report on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, vol 1. US Department of Justice, Washington"},{"key":"464_CR15","unstructured":"Carroll O (2017) St. Petersburg troll farm had 90 dedicated staff working to influence us election campaign. The Independent"},{"key":"464_CR16","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"258","DOI":"10.1109\/ASONAM.2018.8508646","volume-title":"2018 IEEE\/ACM international conference on advances in social networks analysis and mining (ASONAM)","author":"A Badawy","year":"2018","unstructured":"Badawy A, Ferrara E, Lerman K (2018) Analyzing the digital traces of political manipulation: the 2016 Russian interference Twitter campaign. In: 2018 IEEE\/ACM international conference on advances in social networks analysis and mining (ASONAM), pp 258\u2013265"},{"key":"464_CR17","volume-title":"The IRA, social media and political polarization in the United States, 2012\u20132018","author":"PN Howard","year":"2018","unstructured":"Howard PN, Ganesh B, Liotsiou D, Kelly J, Fran\u00e7ois C (2018) The IRA, social media and political polarization in the United States, 2012\u20132018. University of Oxford, Oxford"},{"key":"464_CR18","volume-title":"Proc. ACM WSDM, workshop on misinformation and misbehavior mining on the web","author":"LG Stewart","year":"2018","unstructured":"Stewart LG, Arif A, Starbird K (2018) Examining trolls and polarization with a retweet network. In: Proc. ACM WSDM, workshop on misinformation and misbehavior mining on the web, vol 70"},{"key":"464_CR19","unstructured":"DiResta R et al (2018) The tactics & tropes of the internet research agency. New Knowledge"},{"key":"464_CR20","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"218","DOI":"10.1145\/3308560.3316495","volume-title":"Companion proceedings of the 2019 world wide web conference","author":"S Zannettou","year":"2019","unstructured":"Zannettou S et al. (2019) Disinformation warfare: understanding state-sponsored trolls on Twitter and their influence on the web. In: Companion proceedings of the 2019 world wide web conference, pp 218\u2013226"},{"key":"464_CR21","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"243","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.1906420116","volume":"117","author":"CA Bail","year":"2020","unstructured":"Bail CA et al. (2020) Assessing the Russian Internet research agency\u2019s impact on the political attitudes and behaviors of American Twitter users in late 2017. Proc Natl Acad Sci 117:243\u2013250","journal-title":"Proc Natl Acad Sci"},{"key":"464_CR22","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"374","DOI":"10.1126\/science.aau2706","volume":"363","author":"N Grinberg","year":"2019","unstructured":"Grinberg N, Joseph K, Friedland L, Swire-Thompson B, Lazer D (2019) Fake news on Twitter during the 2016 us presidential election. Science 363:374\u2013378","journal-title":"Science"},{"key":"464_CR23","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/s41467-022-35576-9","volume":"14","author":"G Eady","year":"2023","unstructured":"Eady G et al. (2023) Exposure to the Russian Internet research agency foreign influence campaign on Twitter in the 2016 us election and its relationship to attitudes and voting behavior. Nat Commun 14:62","journal-title":"Nat Commun"},{"key":"464_CR24","unstructured":"Bursztein E, Marzuoli A Quantifying the impact of the twitter fake accounts purge-a technical analysis. https:\/\/elie.net\/blog\/web\/quantifying-the-impact-of-the-twitter-fake-accounts-purge-a-technical-analysis\/. Accessed: 2023-05-25"},{"key":"464_CR25","unstructured":"Roth Y, Harvey D How twitter is fighting spam and malicious automation. https:\/\/blog.twitter.com\/en_us\/topics\/company\/2018\/how-twitter-is-fighting-spam-and-malicious-automation. Accessed: 2023-05-25"},{"key":"464_CR26","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/s41467-018-07761-2","volume":"10","author":"A Bovet","year":"2019","unstructured":"Bovet A, Makse HA (2019) Influence of fake news in Twitter during the 2016 us presidential election. Nat Commun 10:7","journal-title":"Nat Commun"},{"key":"464_CR27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Flamino J et al (2023) Political polarization of news media and influencers on twitter in the 2016 and 2020 us presidential elections. Nat Hum Behav, 1\u201313","DOI":"10.1038\/s41562-023-01550-8"},{"key":"464_CR28","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"469","DOI":"10.1007\/BF02589501","volume":"3","author":"JL Hodges","year":"1958","unstructured":"Hodges JL (1958) The significance probability of the Smirnov two-sample test. Ark Mat 3:469\u2013486","journal-title":"Ark Mat"},{"key":"464_CR29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Mann HB, Whitney DR (1947) On a test of whether one of two random variables is stochastically larger than the other. Ann Math Stat, 50\u201360","DOI":"10.1214\/aoms\/1177730491"},{"key":"464_CR30","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"447","DOI":"10.1080\/10584609.2020.1718257","volume":"37","author":"DL Linvill","year":"2020","unstructured":"Linvill DL, Warren PL (2020) Troll factories: manufacturing specialized disinformation on Twitter. Polit Commun 37:447\u2013467","journal-title":"Polit Commun"},{"key":"464_CR31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Spirtes P, Glymour C, Scheines R (2000) Causation, prediction and search (\"Equation missing\" )","DOI":"10.7551\/mitpress\/1754.001.0001"},{"key":"464_CR32","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRevLett.108.258701","volume":"108","author":"J Runge","year":"2012","unstructured":"Runge J, Heitzig J, Petoukhov V, Kurths J (2012) Escaping the curse of dimensionality in estimating multivariate transfer entropy. Phys Rev Lett 108:258701","journal-title":"Phys Rev Lett"},{"key":"464_CR33","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1126\/sciadv.aau4996","volume":"5","author":"J Runge","year":"2019","unstructured":"Runge J, Nowack P, Kretschmer M, Flaxman S, Sejdinovic D (2019) Detecting and quantifying causal associations in large nonlinear time series datasets. Sci Adv 5:eaau4996","journal-title":"Sci Adv"},{"key":"464_CR34","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/ncomms9502","volume":"6","author":"J Runge","year":"2015","unstructured":"Runge J et al. (2015) Identifying causal gateways and mediators in complex spatio-temporal systems. Nat Commun 6:8502","journal-title":"Nat Commun"},{"key":"464_CR35","first-page":"3","volume":"6","author":"RB Cleveland","year":"1990","unstructured":"Cleveland RB, Cleveland WS, McRae JE, Terpenning I (1990) Stl: a seasonal-trend decomposition. J Off Stat 6:3\u201373","journal-title":"J Off Stat"},{"key":"464_CR36","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"357","DOI":"10.1177\/1940161220912682","volume":"25","author":"Y Golovchenko","year":"2020","unstructured":"Golovchenko Y, Buntain C, Eady G, Brown MA, Tucker JA (2020) Cross-platform state propaganda: Russian trolls on Twitter and youtube during the 2016 us presidential election. Int J Press\/Polit 25:357\u2013389","journal-title":"Int J Press\/Polit"},{"key":"464_CR37","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"292","DOI":"10.1016\/j.chb.2019.05.027","volume":"99","author":"DL Linvill","year":"2019","unstructured":"Linvill DL, Boatwright BC, Grant WJ, Warren PL (2019) \u201cThe russians are hacking my brain!\u201d investigating Russia\u2019s Internet research agency Twitter tactics during the 2016 United States presidential campaign. Comput Hum Behav 99:292\u2013300","journal-title":"Comput Hum Behav"}],"container-title":["EPJ Data Science"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/content\/pdf\/10.1140\/epjds\/s13688-024-00464-3.pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1140\/epjds\/s13688-024-00464-3\/fulltext.html","content-type":"text\/html","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/content\/pdf\/10.1140\/epjds\/s13688-024-00464-3.pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2024,4,10]],"date-time":"2024-04-10T07:02:11Z","timestamp":1712732531000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/epjdatascience.springeropen.com\/articles\/10.1140\/epjds\/s13688-024-00464-3"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2024,4,10]]},"references-count":37,"journal-issue":{"issue":"1","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,12]]}},"alternative-id":["464"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1140\/epjds\/s13688-024-00464-3","relation":{},"ISSN":["2193-1127"],"issn-type":[{"type":"electronic","value":"2193-1127"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2024,4,10]]},"assertion":[{"value":"25 January 2024","order":1,"name":"received","label":"Received","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"13 March 2024","order":2,"name":"accepted","label":"Accepted","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"10 April 2024","order":3,"name":"first_online","label":"First Online","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"order":1,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Declarations"}},{"value":"The authors declare that they have no competing interests.","order":2,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Competing interests"}}],"article-number":"29"}}