Bots, elections, and controversies: Twitter insights from Brazil's polarised elections

Abstract

From 2018 to 2023, Brazil experienced its most fiercely contested elections in history, resulting in the election of far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro followed by the left-wing, Lula da Silva. This period was marked by a murder attempt, a coup attempt, the pandemic, and a plethora of conspiracy theories and controversies. This paper analyses 437 million tweets originating from 13 million accounts associated with Brazilian politics during these two presidential election cycles. We focus on accounts' behavioural patterns. We noted a quasi-monotonic escalation in bot engagement, marked by notable surges both during COVID-19 and in the aftermath of the 2022 election. The data revealed a strong correlation between bot engagement and the number of replies during a single day (r=0.66, p<0.01). Furthermore, we identified a range of suspicious activities, including an unusually high number of accounts being created on the same day, with some days witnessing over 20,000 new accounts and super-prolific accounts generating close to 100,000 tweets. Lastly, we uncovered a sprawling network of accounts sharing Twitter handles, with a select few managing to utilise more than 100 distinct handles. This work can be instrumental in dismantling coordinated campaigns and offer valuable insights for the enhancement of bot detection algorithms.