Duplicating Deceit: Inauthentic Behavior Among Indian Misinformation Duplicators on X/Twitter
Book Chapter
Shafin, AA, Carbunar, B. (2026). Duplicating Deceit: Inauthentic Behavior Among Indian Misinformation Duplicators on X/Twitter
. 16323 LNCS 363-371. 10.1007/978-3-032-13821-7_30
Shafin, AA, Carbunar, B. (2026). Duplicating Deceit: Inauthentic Behavior Among Indian Misinformation Duplicators on X/Twitter
. 16323 LNCS 363-371. 10.1007/978-3-032-13821-7_30
This paper investigates inauthentic duplication on social media, where multiple accounts share identical misinformation tweets. Leveraging a dataset of misinformation verified by AltNews, an Indian fact-checking organization, we analyze over 12 million posts from 5,493 accounts known to have duplicated such content. Contrary to common assumptions that bots are primarily responsible for spreading false information, fewer than 1% of these accounts exhibit bot-like behavior. We present TweeXster, a framework for detecting and analyzing duplication campaigns, revealing clusters of accounts involved in repeated and sometimes revived dissemination of false or abusive content.
