Did Social Bots Shape Public Opinion? Uncovering How Opinion Forms Through Network Analysis
Social bots can act not just as tools for spreading information, but as agents that reshape how people connect and interpret issues.
Public opinion is shaped less by who speaks the most and more by how meaning is organized within network structures.
An analysis of X (formerly Twitter) data collected during COP27 shows that social bot networks exerted a very strong influence on public perception in the early stage of the issue.
Over time, however, this influence declined sharply, while legacy media regained a central role in shaping public opinion.
Clear differences also emerged from sentiment and semantic network analyses.
Social bots rapidly amplified simple and aggressive narratives driven by negative emotions, whereas legacy media formed more balanced emotional patterns and multi layered issue narratives.
Ultimately, the direction of public opinion depends not only on the speed of messages, but on network structure and trust based connections.
The critical window for countering opinion manipulation lies in the earliest phase of issue diffusion, highlighting the need for a structural, time sensitive understanding of how human and non human actors shape public discourse.
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