Legal issues in the use of chatbots in socio-political communications

Cover Page

Cite item

Full Text

Open Access Open Access
Restricted Access Access granted
Restricted Access Subscription or Fee Access

Abstract

Political bots have become an important tool for political technologists. In all major electoral processes around the world, the active use of chatbots on social media has been documented. However, researchers have identified the negative effects of such bots on political processes. The destructive essence of political bots is that they are a digital tool to manipulate public consciousness. Therefore, there is a need to establish a legal framework for the use of such artificial intelligence systems in socio-political communications. The article analyses the experience of foreign countries and substantiates the necessity of legislative consolidation of the principle of transparency of artificial intelligence systems, which will allow to oblige developers and owners of such systems to mark them. Informing users that they are interacting with an artificial intelligence system will reduce the risk of manipulating the public consciousness.

Full Text

Restricted Access

About the authors

Larisa Vladimirovna Sannikova

State Academic University for the Humanities (GAUGN)

Email: 7718609@mail.ru
Russian Federation, Moscow

Ilya M. Sokolshchik

State Academic University for the Humanities (GAUGN)

Author for correspondence.
Email: isokolshchik@gaugn.ru
Russian Federation, Moscow

References

  1. Vasilkova V.V., Legostaeva N.I. Social bots in political communication // Herald RUDN. Ser.: Sociology. 2019. Vol. 19. No. 1. P. 121–133 (in Russ.).
  2. Vasilkova V.V., Legostaeva N.I., Koroshdevsky V.B. Social bots as a tool for the development of civic participation // Monitoring public opinion: economic and social changes. 2019. No. 5. P. 19 - 42. https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2019 .5.02 (in Russ.).
  3. Grachev G., Melnik I. Manipulation of personality. Publishing house “Algorithm”, PDF format. 1999 (in Russ.).
  4. Dotsenko E.L. Psychology of manipulation: phenomena, mechanisms and protection. M., 1997 (in Russ.).
  5. Kara-Murza S.G. Manipulation of consciousness. M., 2012 (in Russ.).
  6. Martyanov D.S. Political bot as a profession // POLITEX. 2016. No. 1. P. 74 - 89 (in Russ.).
  7. Stroganov V.B. Technologies of political manipulation on the Internet: dis. ... Candidate of Political Sciences’. 23.00.02. Ekaterinburg, 2019. P. 10 (209) (in Russ.).
  8. Chesnokov V.O. Application of the community allocation algorithm in information warfare in social networks // Cybersecurity issues. 2017. No. 1. P. 37 - 44 (in Russ.).
  9. Shostrom E. The manipulator man. The inner journey from manipulation to actualization. Kiev, 2003 (in Russ.).
  10. Bessi A., Ferrara E. Social Bots Distort the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election Online Discussion // First Monday. 2016. No. 21(11).
  11. Bonneau J., Grondin-Robillard L., Ménard M., Mondoux A. Fighting the “System”: A Pilot Project on the Opacity of Algorithms in Political Communication // Hepp A., Jarke J., Kramp L. (eds). New Perspectives in Critical Data Studies. Transforming Communications – Studies in Cross-Media Research. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96180-0_5
  12. Caldarelli G., De Nicola R., Del Vigna F. et al. The role of bot squads in the political propaganda on Twitter // Commun Phys. 2020. No. 3. P. 81. doi: 10.1038/s42005-020-0340-4
  13. Duffy C., Fung B. Elon Musk commissioned this bot analysis in his fight with Twitter. Now it shows what he could face if he takes over the platform // CNN. 2022. October 10. URL: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/10/tech/elon-musk-twitter-bot-analysis-cyabra/index.html
  14. Ferrara E. Disinformation and Social Bot Operations in the Run up to the 2017 French Presidential Election. // First Monday. 2017. No. 22(8). doi: 10.5210/fm.v22i8.8005
  15. Haeg J. The Ethics of Political Bots: Should We Allow Them for Personal Use? // Journal of Practical Ethics. 2017. No. 5(2). P. 85 - 104.
  16. Holznagel B., Kalbhenn J.C. Media law regulation of social networks - country report: Germany // Perspectives on Platform Regulation: Concepts and Models of Social Media Governance Across the Globe / J. Bayer, Holznagel B., Korpisaari P., Woods L. (eds). Nomos, 2021.
  17. Howard P.N., Kollanyi B. Bots, #Strongerin, and #Brexit: Computational Propaganda During the UK-EU Referendum // SSRN. 2016. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2798311
  18. Howard P., Woolley S., Calo R. Algorithms, bots, and political communication in the US 2016 election: The challenge of automated political communication for election law and administration // Journal of Information Technology & Politics. 2018. No. 15 (2). P. 81 - 93. doi: 10.1080/19331681.2018.1448735
  19. Keller T.R., Klinger U. Social Bots in Election Campaigns: Theoretical, Empirical, and Methodological Implications // Political Communication. 2019. No. 36(1).
  20. Larsson S., Heintz F. Transparency in artificial intelligence // Internet Policy Review. 2020. No. 9(2). https://doi.org/10.14763/2020.2.1469
  21. Martini F., Samula P., Keller T. R., Klinger U. Bot, or not? Comparing three methods for detecting social bots in five political discourses // Big Data & Society. 2021. No. 8(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517211033566
  22. Massimo S., Ferrara E., De Domenico M. Bots Increase Exposure to Negative and Inflammatory Content in Online Social Systems // Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115. 2018. No. 49. P. 12435–1240. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1803470115
  23. McPherson M., Smith-Lovin L., Cook J.M. Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks // Annual Review of Sociology. 2001. No. 27(1). P. 415 - 444.
  24. Pedrazzi S., Oehmer F. Communication Rights for Social Bots? Options for the Governance of Automated Computer-Generated Online Identities // Journal of Information Policy. 2020. No. 10. P. 549–81.
  25. Ramalingaiah A., Hussaini S., Chaudhari S. Twitter bot detection using supervised machine learning // Journal of Physics: Conference Series. 2021. Vol. 1950 012006. 1950. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1950/1/012006/meta
  26. Ross B., Pilz L., Cabrera B., Brachten F., Neubaum G., Stieglitz S. Are social bots a real threat? An agent-based model of the spiral of silence to analyse the impact of manipulative actors in social networks // European Journal of Information Systems. 2019. No. 28(4). P. 394–412.
  27. Sainath Gannarapu S., Dawoud A., Dawoud A. et al. Bot Detection Using Machine Learning Algorithms on Social Media Platforms: Conference: 5th International Conference on Innovative Technologies in Intelligent Systems and Industrial Applications (CITISIA). 2020.
  28. Santia G., Mujib M., Williams J. Detecting Social Bots on Facebook in an Information Veracity Context // Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media. 2019. No. 13(01). P. 463 - 472.
  29. Sayyadiharikandeh M., Varol O, Yang KC. et al. Detection of novel social bots by ensembles of specialized classifiers // Proceedings of the 29th ACM International Conference on Information & Knowledge Management (CIKM ‘20). 2020. P. 2725–2732.
  30. Stricke B. People v. Robots: A Roadmap for Enforcing California's New Online Bot Disclosure Act // Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law. 2020. No. 22(4). P. 839 - 894.
  31. Subrahmanian V.S., Azaria A., Durst S. et al. The DARPA Twitter bot challenge // Computer. 2016. No. 49(6). P. 38–46.
  32. Van Dijk T. Discourse and manipulation // Discourse & Society. 2006. No. 17(2).
  33. Xing Y., Shu H., Zhao H. et al. Survey on Botnet Detection Techniques: Classification, Methods, and Evaluation // Mathematical Problems in Engineering. 2021. P. 1 - 24. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/6640499
  34. Walmsley J. Artificial intelligence and the value of transparency // AI & Soc. 2021. No. 36. P. 585–595. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-020-01066-z
  35. Woolley S. Bots and Computational Propaganda: Automation for Communication and Control // Persily N., Tucker J. (eds.). Social Media and Democracy: The State of the Field, Prospects for Reform. Cambridge, 2020. P. 89 - 110.
  36. Woolley S., Guilbeault D. Computational Propaganda in the United States of America: Manufacturing Consensus Online / S. Woolley, Ph. N. Howard (eds). Working Paper. 2017.5. Oxford, P. 1–28.

Supplementary files

Supplementary Files
Action
1. JATS XML
Download

Copyright (c) 2023 Russian Academy of Sciences