Cited by 204Misinformation and Its ImpactsComplex Network Analysis TechniquesSpam and Phishing Detection

Disinformation’s spread: bots, trolls and all of us

Open access
Starbird, Kate·2019·Nature

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  • The public reaction to Moltbook reveals as much about human psychology as about artificial intelligence.

    “The public reaction to Moltbook-the willingness to attribute consciousness to statistically generated text, the financial frenzy of a memecoin rallying 1,800% on the premise of machine sentience-reveals as much about human psychology 19,20,32 as about artificial intelligence.”

    From The Moltbook Illusion: Separating Human Influence from Emergent Behavior in AI Agent Societies (2026) · cites this paper as [32]

    In the opening discussion (section and page not supplied), Starbird says human impulses make online discourse vulnerable to disinformation and that audiences can become unwitting collaborators. This supports the general point that public responses to online content reflect human behavior, but the paper does not address Moltbook, attributing consciousness to generated text, or the memecoin rally. (LLM, conf=0.79)

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Authors
Starbird, K.
Affiliations
University of Washington (US)
Corresponding author
Starbird, Kate
Venue
Nature
Published
2019-07-24
Volume
571
Issue
7766
Pages
449-449
ISSN
  • 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
  • 1476-4687
OpenAlex
W2963910833
Cited by
203
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 18 · 2025: 33 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 38 · 2021: 33 · 2020: 23 · 2019: 4
FWCI
49.34
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Complex Network Analysis Techniques
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Spam and Phishing Detection
Keywords
disinformation, online manipulation, bots, trolls, misinformation spread, online disinformation
MeSH terms
Administrative Personnel, Algorithms, Democracy, Goals, Humans, Deception, Politics, Research Personnel, Social Media

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