Paper short abstract:

The authors study social bots of the Russian social network VKontakte, which use the COVID-19 theme and promote conspiracy narratives about digital slavery, food and medicines poisoning, and also pursue hidden propaganda goals.

Paper long abstract:

The infodemia appeared on the informational wave of COVID-19 and actualized the spread of conspiracy narratives seeking to "find the culprits" in the global disaster. Following the first wave of COVID-19 (March-June 2020), social media researchers have identified a number of conspiracy narratives linking the pandemic to the malicious actions of China, B. Gates, 5G technology, and others.

The authors focus on the problem of using social bots in social networks to promote conspiracy narratives. This creates an information explosion in the popularity of ambigious content. The authors present the results of an empirical study of social bots of the Russian social network VKontakte in period from March 16, 2020 - May 26, 2020. The study was carried out using an original comprehensive method for detecting botnets, including the method of frequency analysis of posted messages, profiling of bot accounts and analysis of the content of publications. As a result, the authors discovered botnets that use the COVID-19 theme and promote conspiracy narratives on the social network related to the danger of mass poisoning of food, water and medicines, as well as the danger of “digital slavery” of the population through the massive introduction of biometric data. The authors analyze the hidden goals (of a political and marketing nature) for the dissemination of the analyzed conspiracy narratives.