The study claimed that for each pro-Congress handle spreading propaganda and fake news on Twitter, there are 120 doing the same for the BJP.
The study has been conducted by a user on Reddit who goes by the name ‘/u/onosmosis’. The Reddit user claims to have analyzed lakhs of Twitter accounts which are unverified to identify these trends in online misinformation.
The study was conducted by the use of algorithms and it has identified around 4 lakh Twitter handles that have a clear political leaning. Amongst the 4 lakh, around 1.2 lakh of these accounts were verified as pro-Congress and remaining as pro-BJP.
These accounts were used as a launchpad to spread misinformation and false propaganda. While there are only 147 accounts doing so for Congress, the study identified 18,000 accounts doing the same for BJP.
The user who conducted the study stays anonymous to stay away from getting trolled or attacked by anyone. But it is believed that he/she works as a Software Engineer at a tech-startup and is working to develop a platform for content management and sharing.
The study mainly focused on identifying unverified politically-oriented accounts, because according to the study conductor, “This accounts spread hate, abuse, and false information in larger volume than verified accounts.”
He/She made use of some algorithms to shortlist those that checked certain boxes. The study eventually shortlisted over 3.9 lakh unverified Twitter accounts with a clear leaning to any of the political parties especially BJP and Congress.