Under 4 weeks to go until the referendum and it appears the No Campaign leading figures are followed and engaged by more bots. 5th Column has analyzed many of the account engagements of leading figures in the debate and it appears the No Campaign has more bots in total.
Of note both figures have worse statistics than ACMA which has one of the lowest bot engagement rates. Bot engagement rates are as follows:
5th Column Screen Shots
Why we track Division and Anger
Divisive campaigns that incite anger and splinter groups away from each other in a sowing of 'khaos' way are hallmarks of Russia's information warfare strategy. Russia goals to sow discord, increase division and cause 'khaos' are to ultimately cause more division within society and a loss of trust in the results of elections. We warned the Australian Senate about this and are monitoring for it.
What is 5th Column
The 5th Column platform is an is an artificial intelligence that detects bots or inauthentic accounts on social media. It is designed to track advertising fraud where up to 32% of digital spend is lost. It will be operational during the Voice Referendum. It was originally developed in 2021 when the Pentagon was attacked on social media by the Russian made SANA botnet during the Myanmar coup.
The 5th Column algorithm utilizes a scoring system to determine whether a user is a human, a bot, or falls into the ambiguous gray area. A score of 0 indicates a high probability of the user being a human, while a score of 1 suggests a high likelihood of the user being a bot.
If an account is regularly engaging with bots then their score may tend to be high even if they are actually a human.
What is our position?
Internet 2.0 does not have a stated political position as we see ourselves as bipartisan. We have not been paid by any political party or campaign. We are pro-democracy.
We suggest social media companies should remove bots and monitor for CIB. We suggest people should have to verify they are a citizen of the country they are actively engaging in the political debate of.
