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Manipulating cyber army in pilot case forensics on social media

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Abstract

The cyber army in manipulating public opinion has become a hot foresight issue. The operating procedure and details of how cyber armies influence people’s thoughts are not clarified. Our research model combines computational algorithms and statistical methods from comprehensive and microscope dimension to analyze embedding operation systems and their influence of a specific manipulating group recognized by Taiwan judicial departments. Research shows that this group’s working type is well-trained with a sophisticated work division, and the cyber army’s influence is demonstrated by the speed with which the cyber army’s comments appear, rather than on a bias that the cyber army only manipulates other people’s stances and support specific stance to influence people’s thoughts. This study’s findings will serve as the foundation for future research on social media manipulation, allowing future studies to be more efficient.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of China under the Grant No. MOST 107-2221-E-015-001-MY2, MOST 110-2221-E-015-001-MY3, and Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI).

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Correspondence to Chang-Po Chiang or Shiuh-Jeng Wang.

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Chiang, CP., Wang, SJ. & Chen, YS. Manipulating cyber army in pilot case forensics on social media. J Supercomput 78, 7749–7767 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-021-04172-x

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