Multilingual Bot Accusations: How Different Linguistic Contexts Shape Perceptions of Social Bots

Leon Fröhling, Xiaofei Li, Dennis Assenmacher


Abstract
Recent research indicates that the online use of the term ”bot” has evolved over time. In the past, people used the term to accuse others of displaying automated behavior. However, it has gradually transformed into a linguistic tool to dehumanize the conversation partner, particularly on polarizing topics. Although this trend has been observed in English-speaking contexts, it is still unclear whether it holds true in other socio-linguistic environments. In this work we extend existing work on bot accusations and explore the phenomenon in a multilingual setting. We identify three distinct accusation patterns that characterize the different languages.
Anthology ID:
2024.cpss-1.2
Volume:
Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Computational Linguistics for the Political and Social Sciences: Long and short papers
Month:
Sep
Year:
2024
Address:
Vienna, Austria
Editors:
Christopher Klamm, Gabriella Lapesa, Simone Paolo Ponzetto, Ines Rehbein, Indira Sen
Venues:
cpss | WS
SIG:
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:
14–32
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2024.cpss-1.2
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Leon Fröhling, Xiaofei Li, and Dennis Assenmacher. 2024. Multilingual Bot Accusations: How Different Linguistic Contexts Shape Perceptions of Social Bots. In Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Computational Linguistics for the Political and Social Sciences: Long and short papers, pages 14–32, Vienna, Austria. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
Multilingual Bot Accusations: How Different Linguistic Contexts Shape Perceptions of Social Bots (Fröhling et al., cpss-WS 2024)
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PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2024.cpss-1.2.pdf