Novel method can detect dishonest tweets online

Astroturfing is the deceptive practice of presenting an orchestrated marketing or public relations campaign in the guise of unsolicited comments from members of the public. KimKwang Raymond Choo, associate professor of information systems and cybersecurity at University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) developed a method for detecting people dishonestly posting online comments, reviews or tweets across multiple accounts. 

Choo and his co-authors used writing samples from the most prolific online commentators on various news websites. They discovered that many people espousing their opinions online were actually all linked to a few singular writers with multiple accounts. 

The practice has been used by businesses to manipulate social media users or online shoppers, by having one paid associate post false reviews on web sites about products for sale. It is also used on social media wherein ‘astroturfers’ create several false accounts to espouse opinions, creating the illusion of a consensus when actually one person is pretending to be many. 

“Businesses can use this to encourage support for their products or services or to sabotage other competing companies by spreading negative opinions through false identities,” Choo added in a university statement. Choo is now looking into whether the algorithm can be used to prevent plagiarism and contract cheating.