We uncover a previously unknown, ongoing astroturfing attack on the popularity mechanisms of social media platforms: ephemeral astroturfing attacks. In this attack, a chosen keyword or topic is artificially promoted by coordinated and inauthentic activity to appear popular, and, crucially, this activity is removed as part of the attack. We observe such attacks on Twitter trends and find that these attacks are not only successful but also pervasive. We detected over 19,000 unique fake trends promoted by over 108,000 accounts, including not only fake but also compromised accounts, many of which remained active and continued participating in the attacks. Trends astroturfed by these attacks account for at least 20% of the top 10 global trends. Ephemeral astroturfing threatens the integrity of popularity mechanisms on social media platforms and by extension the integrity of the platforms.
翻译:我们发现了对社交媒体平台受欢迎机制的史无前例的袭击:即短暂的天文攻击。在这次袭击中,一个选定的关键词或主题通过协调的、不真实的活动人为地被推介为受欢迎者,而且至关重要的是,这一活动作为袭击的一部分被删除。我们观察了对Twitter的这种袭击,发现这些袭击不仅成功,而且非常普遍。我们发现了超过19,000个独特的假趋势,由超过108,000个账户所推动,其中不仅包括假账户,也包括已失密账户,其中许多账户仍然活跃,并继续参与袭击。这些袭击所吸引的趋势占全球前10大趋势的至少20%。 即时袭击威胁到社会媒体平台受欢迎机制的完整性,并扩大了平台的完整性。