Are they bots? Social media automation during Chile's 2017 presidential campaign

This research sought for automated strategies of creation or diffusion of electoral propaganda in social media during Chile's 2017 presidential campaign. We collected and analyzed almost 2 million tweets that utilized election hashtags or were linked to one of the candidates or their campaigns; we also collected and analyzed 2,927 official Facebook posts of the candidates and 453,668 comments. While on Facebook the behavior was relatively normal, we discovered that on Twitter there were digital brigades who act autonomously in astroturfing campaigning during the first round of the election.