Tweet manipulation? Venezuela ruling party games Twitter for political gain
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s approval ratings may be languishing below 30 percent, but on Twitter he’s as popular as Pope Francis — or so it would seem. The socialist South American leader regularly sets social media afire with support, with heavily trending anti-U.S. campaigns such #ObamaYankeeGoHome and #ObamaRepealTheExecutiveOrder, which denounced U.S. sanctions on members of Maduro’s administration. But a closer look suggests that the government is artificially inflating its social media influence and distorting its popularity. Independent analysts who ran tests at the request of The Associated Press found the government was benefiting from networks of fake accounts....
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