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Troll Farms and Voter Disinformation

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  • Denter, Philipp
  • Ginzburg, Boris

Abstract

Political agents often attempt to influence elections through "troll farms" that flood social media platforms with messages from fake accounts that emulate genuine information. We study the ability of troll farms to manipulate elections. We show that such disinformation tactics is more effective when voters are otherwise well-informed. Thus, for example, societies with high-quality media are more vulnerable to electoral manipulation.

Suggested Citation

  • Denter, Philipp & Ginzburg, Boris, 2021. "Troll Farms and Voter Disinformation," MPRA Paper 109634, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:109634
    as

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    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/109634/1/MPRA_paper_109634.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fake News; Disinformation; Troll Farms; Elections; Social Media; Information Aggregation; Fact-Checking;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

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