Abstract Book of the 9th International Conference on Social Sciences in the 21st Century
Year: 2025
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Artificial Intelligence, Computational Propaganda and Outrage Cycles
Andrew A. Monti
ABSTRACT:
The following paper discusses the preliminary findings of an analysis of the applications of artificial intelligence, including generative AI, in computational propaganda in the United States between 2016 and 2022. On one hand, AI-powered platforms give political organizations the ability to run thousands of message variations to micro-segmented audiences at scale. On the other, AI-tools can leverage natural language processing and natural language generation to write propaganda content that performs better than human-written content. Three cases are examined: #Pizzagate in 2016, the #GeorgeFloyd protests in 2020, and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The research methods employed are case study, content analysis and sentiment analysis. Social media data is accessed and examined through the Meta Content Library (for Facebook and Instagram), the Developer Platform (for X, formerly Twitter) and YouTube’s public data corpus. Preliminary results suggest that an effect of the application of artificial intelligence in computational propaganda is the sustainment of outrage cycles weaponized to mobilize collective attitudes and influence the political climate.
Keywords: Pizzagate, George Floyd, Russia, Ukraine, Sentiment Analysis