Researchers: Twitter bots at ‘all-time high’ during presidential campaign

Political “bot” activity reached an “all-time high” on Twitter during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to a new study. 

{mosads}The Project on Computational Propaganda found nearly 18 percent of a sample of 18.9 million tweets with political hashtags came from “highly automated” accounts. Those accounts posted 50 or more tweets per day, according to the study, which was first reported by Engadget.

That percentage increased during the presidential debates in September and October, peaking at over 27 percent during the final debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on Oct. 19.

After the election, researchers found that volume of Tweets from the accounts dropped off precipitously.

The findings indicated that automated tweets favoring Trump were especially common.

For every automated pro-Clinton tweet recorded, for example, there were four or more pro-Trump tweets, according the study’s findings.

The research firm states that its data collection method is inherently limited given the size and scope of Twitter, which has 317 million monthly active users.