Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 5, Number 1, Spring / Summer 2020 | Page 65

Discovering Influence Operations on Twitch.tv: A Preliminary Coding Framework are additional avenues of influence, as it is relatively easy to create a bot that produces voice or text within games. By introducing IFOs into the platforms used by the average person, IFO actors have the ability to not only change their targets’ opinions and behavior, but also alter an entire society’s culture (e.g., China’s influence efforts in Africa: Kinyondo 2019). Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Petter Kraabøl, who developed the initial tool to download Twitch comments. The authors thank Cecelia Mulvaney and Genevieve Miller for their feedback and recommendations. Finally, the authors would also like to thank Dr. Carter Matherly for providing the opportunity to submit. References Alexander Sferrella holds a BS in Computer Science. His official duties include software development and data analysis, and his interests include following Chinese international politics. He is interested in further research and welcomes opportunities for collaboration. [email protected] J. Z. Conger holds a BS in Biology and a BA in Psychology, and is graduating with an MS in Applied Psychology in May 2020. His primary research interests include social media, psychological operations, behavioral economics, and improving morale and work environments. He welcomes opportunities for continued research and collaboration. [email protected] Ahmed, Faraz and Muhammad Abulaish. 2013. “A Generic Statistical Approach For Spam Detection In Online Social Networks.” Computer Communications 36 (10-11): 1120–29. Chu, Zi, Steven Gianvecchio, Haining Wang, and Sushil Jajodia. 2010. “Who is Tweeting on Twitter: Human, Bot, or Cyborg?” ACSAC 10: 21–30. Collins, Ben. 2018. “Volunteers Found Iran’s Propaganda Effort on Reddit – But their Warnings were Ignored.” Last modified August 24, 2018. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/volunteers-found-iran-s-propaganda-effort-reddittheir-warnings-were-n903486. FireEye Intelligence. 2018. “Threat Research: Suspected Iranian Influence Operation Leverages Network of Inauthentic News Sites & Social Media Targeting Audiences in US, UK, Latin America, Middle East.” Last modified August 21, 2018. 51