Venezuela government uses fake Twitter accounts for political gain
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's approval ratings may be languishing below 30 percent, but on Twitter he's as popular as Pope Francis -- or so it would seem.
The socialist South American leader regularly sets social media afire with support, with heavily trending anti-U.S. campaigns such #ObamaYankeeGoHome and #ObamaRepealTheExecutiveOrder, which denounced U.S. sanctions on members of Maduro's administration.
But a closer look suggests that the government is artificially inflating its social media influence and distorting its popularity. Independent analysts who ran tests at the request of The Associated Press found the government was benefiting from networks of fake accounts.
Automated accounts known as bots are a worldwide phenomenon that Twitter has struggled to stop. Programmers create them in batches, and Twitter has to eliminate them one by one. At one point, Maduro complained that Twitter had shut down more than 6,000 accounts that followed him. The company declined comment for this story.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/business/ci_28583950/venezuela-government-uses-fake-twitter-accounts-political-gain
