Journal of Information Security and Applications 64 (2022) 103060

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Journal of Information Security and Applications

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jisa

Social network behavior and public opinion manipulation

Long Chen a,b , Jianguo Chen c ,∗, Chunhe Xia a,d ,∗
a
Beijing Key Laboratory of Network Technology, Beihang University Beijing, 100191, Beijing, China
b
Innovation Technology Research Institute, Beijing Topsec Network Security Technology Co Ltd, Beijing, 100085, China
c
Geophysical Laboratory, Hebei Seismological Observatories, Shijiazhuang, 050021, Hebei, China
d
School of Computer Science and Information Technology, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin, 541004, Guangxi, China

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: The scope of cyberspace weapons is expanding from the physical network domain to the cognitive information
Social network domain. Technologies such as network penetration, public opinion guidance and attacks, cognitive intervention
Warfare and manipulation and control will become the main development directions. Controlling public opinion and controlling audiences
Public opinion
will become the cyberspace cognitive domain. In recent years, emerging network media such as social networks
Cyberspace weapons
and mobile communication networks have played an important organizational and planning role in a series
of significant events, which are likely to cause severe threats to national security and even the international
community’s stability. We analyzed and clarified social network actors, environment, scene, manipulation and
ethical framework. We conclude that social public opinion weapons are mainly divided into six categories:
Bot, Botnet, Troll, Manipulate real people and events, Cyborg, and Hacked or stolen. Since social network
warfare is a brand new war situation in the context of great powers, in social media, the confrontation
of camps can be observed. States use social media platforms to penetrate and media war, and its Internet
space monitor and build defenses. A digital wall has been placed horizontally on the boundary of the virtual
space. In recent years, as the trend towards weaponization of social media has become increasingly apparent,
military powers such as the United Kingdom, the United States, and Russia have taken the initiative to
take the lead in the field of social media. All countries continue to strengthen the research on fundamental
cognitive theories. Many basic research projects that integrate information, biology, network, and cognition
have been launched one after another. The combat practice shows that the effectiveness of social media even
exceeds some traditional combat methods. With the prominent role of social media in modern warfare, its
combat use has become increasingly widespread and has gradually become a force multiplier in modern
warfare. At present, the deployment of weapons directed by social network users in significant countries is
mainly focused on incident and public opinion reconnaissance, sentiment analysis, and active intervention. Our
research enumerates the social weapon component model and software architecture. In short, all countries are
using social media to spread political propaganda and influence the digital information ecosystem. This article
enhances our understanding and development trend of public opinion wars in the social network, and proposes
an architecture system for the social weapon arsenal. The technical means, scale, scope, and precision of social
media weapons have been continuously improved. It is gaining momentum to reshape the cyberspace security
pattern of various countries fundamentally.

1. Introduction
In recent years, as the manipulation, behavior and even weaponiza-
tion trend of social network have become increasingly prominent.
military powers such as the United Kingdom, the United States, and
Russia have taken the initiative to take measures such as setting up
specialized agencies, issuing relevant regulations, and increasing tech-
nological research and development, in an attempt to take control of
the social media field.
The main bodies of social network manipulation include the state
guides major public opinion organizations, political parties and politi-
cal lobby groups to purchase followers, military online public opinion
psychological warfare tools, independent agents not controlled by the
military, independent agents not controlled by the military, not military
personnel, and civilian commerce. Institutions and ordinary civilians.
Different subjects are carrying out different levels of activities on so-
cial networks. However, affected by factors such as organizational form,

∗ Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: namedchenjianguo@gmail.com (J. Chen), xch@buaa.edu.cn (C. Xia).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jisa.2021.103060

Available online 8 December 2021

2214-2126/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
L. Chen et al.
size of personnel, financial resources, and motivations, the control and
manipulation of social networks by different subjects collectively form
an impact on social networks.
Social network actors, environment, scene, manipulation and ethical
framework urgently need to analyze and clarify. In addition this article
mainly discuss the operation of social networks by organizations with
official backgrounds and political purposes.
2. Research on social network manipulation in various countries
In 2019, Oxford University researchers released a report [1] show-
ing that more than 56 countries carry out cyber military activities
on Facebook. All countries continue to strengthen the research on
fundamental cognitive theories. Among them, the US Department of
Defense has successfully launched many basic research projects on the
intersection of information, biology, network, and cognition, focusing
on the study of neurocognitive functions and neural tissues to explore
human information acquisition’s cognitive mechanism.
In 2007, the National Research Council of the US Academy of
Sciences published the report ‘‘Army Network Science, Technology
and Experimental Center Policy’’ [2], setting out the Army’s priority
investment areas in the field of network infrastructure. And the use of
social networks followed by humans. This has become an important
area for research.
US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency 2011 published
the ‘‘Social Media Strategic Communications (Social Media in Strategic
Communication, SMISC) plan’’ [3], intended to enhance the ability
of US forces to carry out professional guidance of public opinion.
Through careful design, coordination, coherence, and management of
these social activities’ influence, its effectiveness will be significantly
improved.
In Russia IRA (Internet Research Agency) Internet research insti-
tutions (Agentstvo Internet-Issledovaniy, also known as Glavset) [4],
and is referred to in the Russian city of well-known Internet companies
Olgino of Trolls, is a representative of the Russian business and politics
Interest in Russian companies engaged in social network influence
tasks [5].
According to research conducted by Ali Murat Kirik of the Univer-
sity of Marmara, Turkey, social media has become one of the essential
warfare tools and is known as a new generation of war methods,
including deceptive news, diplomacy, law, and foreign election inter-
ference. The increasing analyze the number of perceptual management
and social engineering activities in social media proves its use as a
war tool. Social media can shape ideas and redesign society. It can
increase sensitivity and strengthen the social response. Anything can
become a reality through social media, and society can become part
of this simulated or artificial world. Social media can manipulate
reality to weaken the administration, society, military, or economy of
a country [6].
In recent years, the US military plans to analyze worldwide more
than 3500 billion social media posts to help track the mass movement’s
evolution. With 60 languages to collect screened from at least 100
countries, two info million users understand the ‘‘group expression
pattern’’ better. The project will research the comments, metadata,
location and hometown identifiers of messages including user names.
In 2019, Oxford University researchers released a report [1] that
more than 56 countries carry out cyber military activities on Facebook.
Researchers found that due to its market size and influence, it can
spread political news and information and form groups and topics,
which can also be widely used as a social network weapon. All countries
are using social media to spread political propaganda and influence
the digital information ecosystem. The scale, scope, and precision of
social media weapons have been continuously improved. It is gaining
momentum the cyberspace security pattern of various countries to
fundamentally re-shape.
2
Journal of Information Security and Applications 64 (2022) 103060
From 1st January 2020, the US Carnegie Mellon University Re-
searchers studied 2 Tweets discuss new crown epidemic and related
issues more than 100 million, according to the researchers, in discus-
sions on the virus tweets, nearly half of them are sent by robots [7].
3. Social network actors, environment, scenes and categories
Social network actors, environment, scene, manipulation and ethical
framework are explicitly analyzed and explored below.
3.1. Actors
The actors who use social media at the beginning of the article revi-
sion include the state, the state guides major public opinion institutions,
political parties, and political lobby groups to buy followers, military
online public opinion psychological warfare tools, independent agents
not controlled by the military, independent men not controlled by the
military, not military personnel, civilian commercial organizations and
ordinary civilians.
Different actors are carrying out different levels of activities on so-
cial networks. However, affected by factors such as organizational form,
size of personnel, financial resources, and motivations, the control
and manipulation of social networks by different subjects collectively
impact social networks.
Here we mainly discuss the operation of social networks by organi-
zations with official backgrounds and political purposes.
3.2. Environment
3.2.1. Warfare environment
At present, no country has positively recognized cyber warfare
and social media manipulation, and there is no widely accepted clear
definition of cyber warfare [13]. Some researchers have provided very
broad definitions [14–24]. These definitions do cover most imaginable
cyber warfare cases, but they may be too broad. particular note is the
increasing use of this term in political and media circles [13].
Brandon Valeriano who equates cybermedia manipulation with
covert activity and suggests that the intelligence community is more
often the significant actor than the Department of Defense [25–33],
which has conducted a lot of research and discussion on network media
manipulation and network warfare. Social networking is a relatively
brand new field, and the responsible agencies in different countries are
different. In particular, the US CAI is directly under the leadership of
the president, but it is full of military backgrounds in terms of technical
means and jurisdiction.
Nowadays, Cyberspace continues to develop. The mode of cyber
warfare has been extended from physical cyberspace to psychological
space, and most of them are deduced in the imaginary space. In some
countries as an important supplement to psychological warfare, so as
to spread tension and false information in the enemy’s country. In
particular, an open and vast social space provides the possibility for
it. Research by Oxford University has shown that there is extensive
information manipulation in many major countries to the extent that it
includes multiple intents [13], including but not limited to war, crime,
bullying, espionage, and terrorism.
If a real war is launched, social media networks can be used
as a means of indirect offensive, from secret media manipulation to
publishing rumors, inciting internal conflicts of the attacked party, and
spreading tension and negative emotions.
L. Chen et al.
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the social network weapon arsenal.
3.2.2. Infosphere environment
Luciano Floridi put forward the explosive development of infor-
mation and communication technologies (ICTs) in the information
community is changing some basic human problems. This has promoted
the discussion of subject morality in the information circle, and the
biosphere, in which animals can be regarded as moral subjects without
having to show free will, emotion, or mental state, and in a social
environment, organizations with similar information circle systems can
play the role of moral agents. As the boundaries between online and
offline life are broken, we seamlessly connect with each other and are
surrounded by intelligent, responsive objects, and we all blend into
an ‘‘information circle’’. Luciano Floridi believes that addressing the
new challenges posed by information and communication technologies
(ICTs) sets out the original ethical framework. He considered informa-
tion ethics, including privacy, ownership, open-source, copyright, and
accessibility issues. ICT has had a radical and widespread impact on
our moral life and contemporary ethical debate. Privacy, ownership,
freedom of expression, responsibility, technological determinism, the
digital divide, and internet pollution are some of the most pressing
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Journal of Information Security and Applications 64 (2022) 103060
issues in the moral discourse characteristics of the information soci-
ety. Floridi believes that we must expand our ecological and ethical
approach to natural and artificial realities and be placed in an envi-
ronmentalist that can successfully address the new challenges posed
by digital technology and the information society. This is a unique
philosophical research field that studies the ethical impact of ICT on
human life and society. He made critical research on the conceptual
nature and basic principles of information, including its dynamics,
utilization and science, as well as the elaboration and application of
information theory and computational methodology on philosophical
issues [34–41].
3.3. Scenes
Different subjects are carrying out different levels of activities on so-
cial networks. However, affected by factors such as organizational form,
size of personnel, financial resources, and motivations, the control and
manipulation of social networks by different subjects collectively form
an impact on social networks.
L. Chen et al. Journal of Information Security and Applications 64 (2022) 103060

Table 1
Summary of social network arsenal.
Classification Definition
Bot An automated program used
to participate in social media.
Bots are automated social
media accounts operated by
algorithms [8]
Botnet Refers to those who are
motivated by commercial
interests to achieve improper
purposes [9]
Troll People who deliberately
initiate online conflicts or
offend other users, distract
and create divisions in online
communities or social
networks.
Manipulate real people Try to connect with
and events individuals and mobilize them
to take action in the real
world
Cyborg Integration of automation and
manual control
Hacked or stolen The hacked or stolen account
Judge Means
There are no personalized posts, comments, answers, Ostensibly expand the visibility of an individual or
or interactions with other users’ online posts organization
Influence election
Manipulate financial markets
Amplify phishing attacks
Spread spam
Destroy freedom of speech
Network botnet identification uses Web information Internet writer
mining technology in the current network environment Manufacturing and using false information
[10] to define high-discrimination features and Re-comment and big V means
behavior patterns to discover hidden network botnet. Download and play data fraud
Anti-discrimination ad
Commercial and political robots
The difference between a troll and a robot is that a normal
troll is a real user, and the robot is automatically set. Profanity
The two types are mutually exclusive and do not Trolling
overlap Derogatory
Hate speech [11]
Influencing unsuspecting people can range from ‘‘Useful Idiot’’
forwarding or disseminating propaganda, to hiring ‘‘Fellow Traveler’’
false intelligence personnel online to persuade real ‘‘Secret Agent’’ [12]
people taking action.
Use auxiliary tools while being controlled by people Mass forwarding, fast reply and ultra-high frequency
posting
Highlights the Internet’s propaganda through more ‘‘False’’ high-profile account is a network of strategic
traditional forms of cyber attacks forces.

Luciano Floridi explores Artificial agents (AA) [40] especially
but not limited to agents in cyberspace, expanding the categories of
entities that can participate in ethical contexts. This has promoted the
discussion of subject morality in cyberspace and the biosphere, where
animals can be regarded as moral subjects without showing free will,
emotion, or mental state, and in a social environment, systematically
similar organizations can play the role of moral agents. The main ‘‘cost’’
of the facility is to extend the categories of agents and ethics agents to
accept AAs.
3.4. Manipulation
Early and recent updates on our progress [42–47]follow-up. Ma-
nipulation is controlling someone or something to your own advan-
tage, often unfairly or dishonestly [24]. A manipulator can introduce
some potentially fake content among the connected voters to alter the
voters’ preference rankings and make her desired candidate win the
election [46]. Change has two layers of behavior and theme and is
relatively widely used.

Due to the large scope and breadth of social network manipulation,

most agencies with government backgrounds are carried out. According
to the Oxford research report [1], this is also proved.
We distinguish between the deployment of weapons to influence
users and the deployment of weapons to alter the digital environment.
In deploying weapons to influence users, it is the subject of In-
formation Ethics (IE), a new philosophical research area that studies
the ethical impact of ICT on users’ lives and society. Luciano Floridi
believes that addressing the unique challenges posed by information
and communication technologies (ICTs) sets out the original ethical
framework. ICT has had a radical and widespread impact on our
moral and ethical debate. Privacy, ownership, freedom of expression,
responsibility, technical determinism, the digital divide, and online
pornography are just some of the pressing issues that characterize the
moral discourse of the information society. At this point, Floridi lays
out the impact of IE on online users.
In deploying weapons to change the digital environment, Luciano
Floridi argues that operations, decisions, and choices previously re-
served for humans are increasingly delegated to algorithmic tools,
which, if not decided, may make recommendations on how data should
be interpreted and what action should be taken. Based on the impact
on users, algorithms mediate social processes, business transactions,
government decisions, and how we perceive and understand our in-
teractions with each other and the environment. The gap between the
design and operation of algorithms and our understanding of their eth-
ical implications can have serious consequences that affect the digital
environment of society as a whole.
3.5. Ethical framework
The ethical framework of ’electoral success’ is a forwarding tool to
manipulate results on behalf of the modified candidate.
Electoral stands for the conduct of a free and fair election. Although
we often use ethical connotations and cultural significance to restrain
individual behavior to the agency. But the election has extended to cy-
berspace, including social networks with common ethical frameworks.
4. Types of social public opinion tactical weapon
Social public opinion information warfare includes technical and
psychological information warfare. The scope of cyberspace weapons
is expanding from the physical network domain to the cognitive in-
formation domain. Technologies such as network penetration, public
opinion guidance, and attacks, cognitive intervention and control will
become the main development directions. Controlling public opin-
ion and controlling audiences will become the cyberspace cognitive
domain—weapon development goals [48]. In recent years, emerging
network media such as social networks and mobile communication
networks have played an important organizational and planning role in
a series of significant events, which are likely to cause severe threats
to national security and even the international community’s stability.
As the social public opinion weapon arsenal’s core equipment, social
robots create content and messages, which are injected into online
social platforms, and read and spread by others (Fig. 1). Deceptive news
stories, invasion and release of private communications, fabricated

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L. Chen et al. Journal of Information Security and Applications 64 (2022) 103060

Table 2
Social network weapon module.
Weapon module
Behavior Information
Representation Module
Character portrait
information representation
module
User recognition model
construction
User behavior guidance
mechanism construction
Homogeneous community
discovery
Behavioral collaboration
module of homogeneous
groups
Technical means
To achieve the problem of representation of interactive text, social text multi-level and multi-angle graph representation methods is used,
including research on the extraction of multi-dimensional information. The interactive information semantic variable granularity
representation realizes social text lexical, sentence and paragraph level multi-level semantic representation. Construct a multi-dimensional
representation method of user operation behaviors of four types of social network likes: favorites, comments, and forwards, realize the
characterization of each dimension, construct a text topic extraction method based on topic models, and construct a text source authority
and text emotional tendency Characterization algorithm, the expression method of text popularity, and the calculation method of poor
behavior.
Realize the characterization problem of portrait information, and construct the description method of user’s basic attributes, personality
characteristics, interest characteristics and emotional characteristics. We use data mining methods to obtain the user’s basic attributes, use
the Big Five Model theory to analyze the text posted by the user to obtain the user’s personality label, use machine learning methods to
train the text feature and the user’s personality association model, build a key Word extraction and sentiment analysis are used to obtain
user interest weights to construct user sentiment representations based on short texts.
Implement depicts the problem of social network users cognitive processes, and builds relationships between the user and the user accepts
portraits of information to build user awareness and user behavior model to describe the user cognitive processes.
The social network behavior guidance mechanism realizes the guidance of the user’s original behavior to the desired behavior. The guidance
mechanism’s construction includes three aspects: the conversion of the guidance intention to the desired user behavior, the cognitive
reasoning function based on the convex function to find the optimal semantic difference, and the template-based guidance text generation.
The commonalities in homogeneous communities are called homogeneous attributes. The homogeneity of the property is the basis for
reaching a consensus and forming the convergence of group behavior. Homogeneous community discovery requires the adoption of
behavior-driven social network structure timing models and community discovery techniques based on consistent attributes.
Realize the convergent trigger problem of social network group behavior, build a guided communication model based on guiding text and
a group interaction model based on sentiment analysis. Construct a multi-source social information dissemination model, and realize the
prediction of the scale of the guidance text in the social network; design the information-oriented communication maximization method to
realize the homogeneity of the guidance text in the dissemination process full coverage of the community.

incidents, statements or results, and the spread of fear have been used
to influence the target country’s politics, military, and economy [49].
Six ‘weapons’ can be seen as a means and link of tactical used to
serve the strategic layout. Due to the concealment of each agency’s
manipulation of social network space, its strategic layout and tactical
means can only be hypothetical and studied by technical means.
In the field of social media, the confrontation of the camp can be
observed. Western use of social media platforms and media penetration
war, and its Internet space monitor and build defenses. A digital wall
has been placed horizontally on the virtual space boundary [50].
Social network arsenals are summarized (Table 1).
4.1. Bot
A social media robot (Bot) is an automated program to participate
in social media. A bot is an automated social media account operated
by an algorithm. These robots exhibit partially or utterly autonomous
behavior and are usually designed to mimic human users. Robots’ key
indicators are anonymity, high activity, and amplification of specific
users, topics, and tags [8].
Automated media accounts on social networking sites allow social
media users to artificially enlarge and increase dissemination, or the
‘‘toxicity’’ of network content. Russian-backed agents have used these
automated accounts and are committed to developing and improv-
ing their robotic capabilities to spread false information faster and
deeper across the social media field. January 2018, Twitter disclosed
its security personnel assessment that there are more than 50,000
automatic accounts related to Russia in Twitter post-election-related
content during the US presidential campaign [51].
A large number of social media bots are malicious bots disguised
as human users. Malicious social media bots can be used to influ-
ence politics, advertising, access, networks, and media for multiple
purposes [8].
4.2. Botnet
The botnet is a network of robot accounts managed by the same
person or group. The so-called ‘‘water army’’ refers to the Army of fans
lurking on the Internet social platforms to bluff for specific users or top-
ics. Most of these paid senders and commentators of false information
are employed by relevant agencies or competitors in the target country.
The network of water army is those driven by commercial interests,
to achieve a network such as the impact of public opinion, disrupting
the network environment and another improper purpose, by manip-
ulating the software robot or botnet accounts, made on the Internet,
spreading false information, comments and spam comments [9].
Network botnet recognition uses Web information mining technol-
ogy in the current network environment [10] to define high-
discrimination characteristics and behavior patterns to discover hidden
network botnet. The network botnet can also be understood as an
outlier among all network users [52]. Because of the social networking
media robot clearance and enhanced detection method, Botnet network
herdsman becomes more carefully, so that a single robot is more
difficult to detect [8]. However, evidence such as speech patterns, iden-
tical posts, date and time of creation, behavioral relevance, location
relevance, and account name patterns can still be used to distinguish
the botnet [8]. The botnet’s methods are divided into network writers,
making and using false information, reposting likes and oversized V
methods, downloading and playing data falsification, anti-serial slander
advertising, commercial and political robots, etc.
4.3. Troll
Troll deliberately initiates conflict or offends other users online,
distracting and divisiving people in the online community or social
network or posting provocative topic posts. Their goal is to irritate
others, react emotionally, and disrupt discussions. The difference be-
tween a troll and a robot is that a troll is a real user, while the robot
is automatically set. The two types are mutually exclusive and do not
overlap. Trolling as a behavior, not just limited to troll would do.
The troll arsenal is divided into eve categories: normal, profanity,
trolling, derogatory, and hate speech [11]. A network troll is a key-
board player who posts provocative, offensive, harassing or misleading
information on the Internet by a real person who tries to provoke
reactions from other users on social media.
In recent years, Russia’s use of troll behavior is more and more
exposed. Entity supported by Kremlin has specialized in operating a
large number political funding troll troops over the years. Investment
construction of large-scale industrialized ’’troll farm’’ and the Russian
advanced in the global information goals.
The NATO Center for Strategic Communications of Excellence was
commissioned to research trolls in hybrid warfare. This research focuses
on discussions surrounding Ukraine and Russia’s conflict and outlines

5
L. Chen et al.
the influence techniques used by cyber trolls, including improper use.
The slander and attack, the use of irony and satire, the peddling of
conspiracy theories, the use of young and attractive male and female
avatars, the transfer of topics to others, the posting of misleading infor-
mation on sources such as Wikipedia, and the emphasis on social issues
e.g. the gap between rich and poor, without source or verification,
provides a lot of indigestible data [53].
4.4. Manipulation of real people and events
While creating deliberate disinformation, trolls, we try to establish
contact with individuals and mobilize them to take action in the real
world. Russian spies hired bogus intelligence agents online to attract
a wide range of real people to take action from influencing unsuspect-
ing people to forwarding or disseminating propaganda to persuading
someone to stage a real-world protest.
In 2017 Clint Watts [54] outlined three different types of Rus-
sian influence operations potential organizational penetration of target
(Watts, 2017). One category of ‘‘useful idiots’’ refers to unsuspecting
Americans being used to further expand their propaganda in Russia.
‘‘Family travelers’’ ideologically sympathize with Russia’s anti-Western
elements to take action on their own. ‘‘Secret agent’’ refers to being
actively manipulated to carry out illegal or secret operations on behalf
of the Russian government [12].
4.5. Cyborg
The robot account, which combines automation and manual control,
is another weapon account type. It is controlled by humans while using
auxiliary tools to realize large-scale forwarding, quick reply, and ultra-
high-frequency posting accounts in a short time — this kind of account
is also called ‘‘Cyborg (semi-robot)’’, which is usually with a strong
sense of purpose.
4.6. Hacked or stolen
Hacked or stolen accounts. Although these accounts are not robot
accounts in nature, ‘‘deception’’ high-profile accounts are strategic
cyber forces to spread pro-government propaganda or revoke access to
legitimate owners’ accounts through censorship. A small number of na-
tional cyber forces have begun to use stolen or hacked accounts as part
of their activities, highlighting the Internet’s use of more traditional
forms of cyberattacks for propaganda. Also, not all of the accounts used
by the military are false.
5. Social public opinion combat effect
The combat practices of Ukraine, Iraq, and Syria have shown that
social media may produce effects that aircraft, tanks, and artillery can-
not achieve. In a sense, its effectiveness even exceeds some traditional
combat methods [55]. With the prominent role of social media in
modern warfare, its combat use has become increasingly widespread
and has gradually become a force multiplier in modern warfare.
5.1. Use social media to gather intelligence information
Various national military and political departments, organizations,
and individuals conduct background analysis of messages, photos, and
videos on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Weibo, and WeChat to iden-
tify the details of the publisher’s activities and implement unique
intelligence collection. The means include :
(1) Network element terminal intrusion,
(2) A large number of report contents or accounts,
(3) Data-driven strategy.
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Journal of Information Security and Applications 64 (2022) 103060
Superpowers support the release of cyber intelligence perception
weapon arsenal capabilities through the framework of global intelli-
gence monitoring projects. Especially Edward Snowden [56] in 2013.
The US National Security Agency (NSA) had a global intelligence,
surveillance and disclosure of its various global intelligence surveil-
lance project intensified. Large-scale surveillance is considered by some
countries as one of the means to combat terrorism, prevent crime,
prevent social unrest, and protect national security.
In 2015, a commander ‘‘Islamic State’’ exposes its position in the
building because the organization on social network released a self-
portrait. Then US warplanes were bombing killed.
Since 2017 the attempted attacks on electronic devices have effec-
tively diverged people’s views on the government, media, and public
institutions in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Estonia, the United States, Germany,
France, and Austria. Because it is difficult to blame, the conduct of these
actions will not expose the aggressor to political severe or military risks.
5.2. Influence public perception through social media
Cyber forces use a variety of messaging and value strategies when
communicating with users online. At the same time, the influence of
public awareness of military operations is increasing. Social media can
quickly push selected information to hundreds of millions of target
audiences in the form of pictures and texts, which affects the target
audience’s views and attitudes towards the event.
(1) Spread propaganda supporting the government or the party,
(2) Attacking the opposition or launching a smear campaign,
(3) Drive division and polarization,
(4) Expand content and media online,
(5) Spread false information or manipulate the media,
(6) Distract or divert attention from conversation or criticism.
During the Syrian civil war, the opposition forces and their sup-
porters posted more than 100 videos and thousands of messages from
12 different regions through social media, accusing the government
forces of using sarin gas, making the international community generally
believe that the government forces have launched chemical weapons.
The attack eventually forced the Assad government to agree to destroy
chemical weapons stockpiles.
More and more national organizations use social media as a weapon
of destruction. Use ‘‘Troll’’ to promote political goals. Many fake ac-
counts, discussion boards, online newspaper websites and video servers
have been registered on major social networking sites [57]. Including
Twitter and Facebook’s freezing of unique accounts. In recent years,
political campaigns have shifted from the top-down model in the classic
media era to the bottom-up model in the social media era. Social media
can enable candidates to achieve multi-dimensional interpersonal inter-
action, help increase people’s political participation and effectiveness
and have become the core transformative weapon of the campaign.
Department of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University pro-
fessor Kathleen M. Carley time analysis of noteworthy natural disasters
and political events in the United States, the interactive platform typi-
cally have 10%–20% is a robot account participation. In the discussion
of topics related to the new crown virus, the participation rate of
fake Twitter accounts may be as high as 45%–60%, and the activity
level is 3–5 times that of usual, and there are signs of organization,
behavior patterns more complicated, and deeper hidden. The large-
scale epidemic of the epidemic globally means that greater political
and capital interests will drive more people. Simultaneously, more and
more institutions are launching influence campaigns, exerting powerful
forces to lead the dissemination of false information [58].
L. Chen et al.
5.3. Use social media to implement psychological deterrence
In conflicts during the 21st century, the psychological level is
as crucial as the physical level, and the creative use of psychological
warfare can effectively onset the opponent’s advantage on the physical
battlefield. Social media has become an essential means through which
extremist terrorist organizations gain popularity.
In recent years, the combat use of social media has shown a diversi-
fied trend. The ‘‘Islamic State’’ uses social media extensively to spread
revolutionary ideas, recruit members and raise funds [59].
(1) Trolling, assassination or harassment,
(2) Suppress participation through personal attacks or harassment.
At the end of 2010, in the Arab world revolution—the ‘‘Arab Spring’’
movement, covering the entire Middle East and North Africa, Face-
book and Twitter became the leading positions for young people to
initiate and organize protests, express their emotions, and spread their
revolutionary will. It not only played a robust political mobilization
and organizational liaison function but also played a role in out-
putting information waterfalls, inspiring individual behaviors, coordi-
nating collective actions, challenging authoritarian regimes, escalating
proliferation movements, acting as citizens’ emotional vent, brewing
awareness of protest, triggering chain reactions, and attracting interna-
tional attention and the multiple roles that influence the international
pattern [60].
November 14 2012, the Israeli army launched a military operation
code-named ‘‘defense pillar’’. While launching the military action, the
Israeli Army and Hamas simultaneously stated action on Weibo, ex-
pounding the justice of the Israeli Army’s actions and seeking sympathy
and support from public opinion. Social media is directly used in
warfare, which has affected the process and results of combat to a
certain extent.
In recent years, the combat use of social media has shown a diversi-
fied trend. The ‘‘Islamic State’’ uses social media extensively to spread
revolutionary ideas, recruit members and raise funds [59].
6. The social public opinion arsenal module evolution
In terms of the cyber social weapon arsenal, organizations with
military backgrounds in various countries have created cyber social
public opinion cyber weapons. Through the cultivation of social robots
(robot ‘‘big V’’), they affect the information environment of the target
country.
By creating a new type of strategic game in cyberspace and the
sharpest social network weapon for security struggles, countries have
realized the guidance of online public opinion, which mainly refers
to the long-term confrontation of various communication channels
surrounding network information, competing for the dominance of
public opinion and then ideology. Social network behavior guidance
is a series of activities to change the attitude and behavior of users
or groups with specific intentions. People need to integrate different
sources of information when making decisions, and in social media,
the information environment may be distorted by the influence of
cyberspace robot account weapons.
Since social network warfare is a new war situation under the back-
ground of the game of big powers, the current weapon deployments
directed by social network users in major countries mainly focus on
incident and public opinion reconnaissance, sentiment analysis, and
active intervention:
The weapon means of the event and public opinion reconnaissance
includes two continuous identification and tracking processes. Solu-
tions to this task can be divided into four categories: topic-based model,
text-based clustering, feature-based, and pattern-based.
The task of online public opinion warfare can divide sentiment anal-
ysis into sentiment polarity classification, sentiment change conditions,
subjective and objective analysis, sentiment analysis combined with
multiple features, and feature selection in sentiment analysis.
7
Journal of Information Security and Applications 64 (2022) 103060
The active intervention technology of network social weapons is
mainly divided into monitoring and intervention. Such hostile forces
in Twitter collect relevant information and extract the user’s mood and
feel a sense of social robot to identify opinion leaders, influential users,
cultivating big V social robot account intervention, guiding public
opinion, and influencing political outcomes.
Our research on social network weapons mainly consists of the
following modules (Table 2).
7. Research progress of social network arsenal technology
7.1. Research on social network behavior
Early research on the evolution of social networks was mainly
based on the cumulative advantages of node degrees and the static
fitness of nodes and other factors to study the evolution mechanism of
network growth, node growth mechanism, and aging mechanism, and
explore the statistical aspects in the evolution of social networks. User
attribute factors increase the evolution model, with different categories
considered evolutionary difference households, only considering the
conventional network architecture evolution compared to higher accu-
racy. In recent years, the game evolution model [61] uses mutations to
describe user behavior strategy updates and uses genetic algorithms to
simulate user cooperation’s evolution process. Compared with the evo-
lution model that only considers user attributes, it has higher accuracy
and has become a research network—hot spots of structural evolution.
Network ‘‘groups’’ promote disseminating information in the net-
work and affect the social networking topology configurations. The
research on groups in social networks mainly focuses on group inter-
action behavior and sentiment analysis. The researchers first expand
interactive features for individual users in social network analysis, such
as the depth of convolution-based on a combination of neural networks
to create a user interaction model node properties [62] analyzed the po-
tential for personal and social interaction characteristics of individuals
(PSLF) joint model [63], the behavioral probability generation model
combined with social influence [64], etc. These models mainly analyze
the user’s interaction behavior from an external perspective and fail
to explore the user’s internal factors’ influence on the interaction
behavior. Then the researchers realized that factors such as user interest
preferences have a significant impact on user interaction.
Research in disseminating information focused on information dis-
semination process modeling and disseminating information to maxi-
mize the two aspects. The traditional modeling of information dissem-
ination can be divided into graph-based models and infectious disease
models. Graph-based models mainly include independent cascade mod-
els [65,66], linear threshold models [67], etc., which dynamically
simulate the propagation process; infectious disease models mainly
include SIS models [68], and SEIR models [69], the primary consid-
eration of the state of rotation change. The main concern of the above
models and statistics propagation characteristics, ignoring the wealth
of semantic information dissemination process within the culvert. In re-
cent years, communication models related to information content have
gradually emerged. Recently, research studies began to consider the im-
pact on the evolution of information dissemination’s network structure.
These methods only find key nodes from the network structure level
and ignore the rich semantics in information dissemination.
For this reason, a variety of information dissemination maximiza-
tion methods combining information semantics have emerged. How-
ever, the above techniques for maximizing information dissemination
all depend on the network topology to varying degrees. At present,
user privacy protection is increasing, and it is almost impossible to
obtain a complete network topology. So in recent years, researchers be-
gan exploring cell-based research interest semantic feature information
dissemination maximized.
The current research on the mechanism underlying the social net-
work is still relatively early from the above studies. The mass has
L. Chen et al. Journal of Information Security and Applications 64 (2022) 103060

Fig. 2. The overall of social network weapon research and development.

Fig. 3. ‘‘Social robot’’ account generation steps on social networks.

8
L. Chen et al.
Fig. 4. Steps to simulate the social behavior of ‘‘social robots’’ on social networks.
a social network of nodes, structural complexity, evolution multi-
dimensional, multi-source information, etc. concurrency. Laid point is
conventional. Most of the driving forces for network topology evolution
only consider unilateral factors such as time. Information dissemi-
nation models are mostly based on infectious disease models, net-
work topology diagrams, statistical analysis, and other methods. They
9
Journal of Information Security and Applications 64 (2022) 103060
cannot describe the process of information dissemination from multiple
dimensions such as time, space, and information semantics. Interaction
of research studies on the mechanism of interaction between groups is
not deep, and strong social networks cannot describe the evolution of
interactive, public sentiment drift characteristics.
L. Chen et al.
Fig. 5. Training steps of ‘‘social robot big V’’ on social networks.
7.2. Research on user behavior guidance of social networks
Current academic research on social network user behavior guid-
ance mainly focuses on event and topic discovery, sentiment analysis,
and active intervention.
The discovery of events and topics includes two continuous pro-
cesses of Identification and tracking. Solutions to this task can be
divided into four categories: topic-based [70] model, text-based clus-
tering, feature-based, and pattern-based.
From the tasks concerned by sentiment analysis, it can be divided
into sentiment polarity classification [71], sentiment change condi-
tions [72], subjective and objective analysis [73], sentiment analysis
combining multiple features [74], and feature selection in sentiment
analysis [70,75], etc.
In terms of active intervention theory and technology, the exist-
ing technologies are mainly divided into two types: monitoring and
intervention. Monitoring
Friederike and Galam et al. [76,77] explained the underlying oper-
ating mechanism of online public opinion. Good program [78] at Twit-
ter collects relevant information and extracts user emotions and feelings
to help decision-user-makers identify opinion leaders, an influential
public statement in response to immigration and border security-related
put for decision support. In terms of network group intervention,
communication is still the primary method, and the main process is
to find critical nodes.
As can be seen from the above literature, existing social networks
to guide user behavior found in the topic, emotions analytical re-
search plane made some progress in monitoring, analysis level, enables
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Journal of Information Security and Applications 64 (2022) 103060
hot events monitoring and tracking functions. Proactive interventions
do some introductory guide to explore the theory and technology,
through the analysis based on user preferences guide the user to specific
purchase behavior and other methods recommended by covering infor-
mation, pressing, pushing and, other means with government policies
and regulations to control node controlled by the robust platform for
the realization of public opinion under control And boot. However, the
international community’s social network and the hot topic of the event
have not effectively guided the behavior of mold formation type and
guide technology.
From the universal consider guidance programs, uncontrolled social
networking platforms can only influence the content of the information
used by behavioral guidance households. The human brain’s thinking
consciousness determines the received data and the resulting behavior.
If a guiding model is constructed based on the human’s thinking
consciousness, the user can be guided from the received information’s
content to self-consciousness. However, the existing guidance based on
thinking consciousness is concentrated in the fields of pedagogy [79],
medicine [80,81], psychology [82], etc., and need to work together
in the external environment, equipment, etc. Under the guidance’s
influence, the guidance theory and methods described in it have not
yet formed a calculation model and cannot yet be used for the guid-
ance of social network behavior. Therefore, it is necessary to study
a computable guidance theory, use computers to implement guidance
construction models at the user’s thinking level and develop social net-
work behavior guidance systems and tools. Through literature review,
no published research results have been found yet.
L. Chen et al.
Fig. 6. Guided auxiliary campaign steps based on social network behavior.
8. The overall body of research arsenal of social networking
The overall research system of the social network weapon arsenal
is shown in Fig. 2. Social network behavior refers to user behaviors
generated using social networks through information and group be-
haviors based on user interactions. Social network behavior guidance
aims to enable network users to create expectations. Social behavior
and social network environment produce desired effects. Social network
user behavior is an activity in which the character’s personality and
received information are reflected on social networks through personal
cognition. The convergence of group behavior is the evolution of group
user behavior to achieve the desired goal. It is the evolution of user
interaction information, and the interaction method acts on users and
causes the development of homogeneous communities.
Social network information representation, based on user nodes
and collected interactive text, describes text information, user behav-
ior, user personality, interest, and other profile information. These
description dimensions are all related to cognition and are the input
for constructing cognitive user models. Social network boot behavior
generate computing paradigm. First of all, according to the guidance
intended derived FIG user desired behavior, then the difference output
by the input information inference behavior Bayesian belief network
the corresponding difference relationship, poor mixing behavior based
on the personal tag optimized input difference information to find out,
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Journal of Information Security and Applications 64 (2022) 103060
and then have to guide the text, the last text-based template generation
guide; social networking group behavior using convergence to find
homogeneous community area, based on individual sentiment analysis
on the establishment and homogeneity within homogeneous commu-
nities Homogeneous ‘‘social robots’’ with similar community emotions,
and gradually guide target social users with similar feelings to ‘‘social
robots’’ in homogeneous communities, to realize the idea of converging
group behaviors in homogeneous communities. Technically, through
the dynamics of the network structure digging discover and track ho-
mogeneous society, disseminating information, and a research-oriented
model build propagation path. The final study population between
diffusion interactive mode information and the message spread to a
range of network behavior will form groups of convergence. Simu-
lation and test results of use cloud computing, SDN technology, and
SOAR model simulation to build a social network, research testing,
and model-guided technology projects proposed. Finally, the Hadoop
big data processing platform and Sri Tanfu network analyzer platform
SNAP can combine with our evaluation system to analyze experimental
data.
The social network weapon research and development designed the
social network behavior guidance system into the architecture. Wherein
the data acquisition and management layer negative responsible crawl
mass in the heterogeneous data taken from the social network to the
local database and pre-correlation model training practice layer is
L. Chen et al.
Fig. 7. Based social network behavior guidance step guide public opinion.
accountable for learning the social network users from extensive social
and cognitive model data. In the network environment information-
related model, the user behavior guidance layer is responsible for
calling the trained model to perform the guidance process of social
network user behavior.
(1) The data acquisition and management, social network weapons
development using open distributed crawler frame Nutch build several
data acquisition module, an extensive data processing system using a
distributed Hadoop design data processing module, designed network
node configuration database, the user attribute database, sea and user
interaction database for storing text information database to obtain the
amount of heterogeneous data, and the development of data processing
and data access interface module to provide services related training
model layer;
(2) The relevant model training layer will realize the learning pro-
cess from data to the model proposed in the research and development
of social network weapons. The social network user cognitive model
generation needs to rely on text information and user behavior charac-
teristics, user portraits, and social network environment information.
The correlation model needs to analyze the evolution law of a network
structure and a user interaction, and therefore the layer is provided
each functional block;
(3) At the user behavior guidance layer, social network weapon
research and development provides social network behavior guidance
intention editing and interpretation modules to receive user intentions
and convert them into a form that is easy for machines to process, and
then develop target user expected behavior generation modules based
on guidance intentions and The guiding strategy generation module
based on guiding purpose is used to generate social network behavior
coaching strategies, and finally the social network behavior coaching
execution and scheduling module is designed to call the user behavior
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Journal of Information Security and Applications 64 (2022) 103060
difference calculation module developed based on the technology of
social network weapon research and development, and the difference
behavior-oriented the difference information generating module and
generate guidance text-based boot text generation module difference
information, and then call the virtual social account management mod-
ule in the social network virtual account generation, social behavior
simulation (against the social networking platform of ‘‘social robot’’
check test system) and The guide text is published.
(4) Visualization layer in the system, the social network weapons
development based on HTML5 for the system to provide a front-end
user can visualize the UI, and design social networking topology,
social networking environment information, social networking portraits
and guide performance statistics data of the four key information
visualization Module.
8.1. ‘‘Social Robot Big V’’ cultivation system in social networks
Currently, ‘‘social robots’’ have begun to invade major social net-
works and influence users’ decision-making on these social networks.
Significant presidential election, little to the evaluation of a movie, can
see ‘‘social robot’’ live-action ‘‘shadow’’. However, the existing ‘‘social
robot’’ influence in social networks is still limited, which is one of
the reasons is the insufficient number of fans single ‘‘social robot’’,
our project-based research achievements in social networks (such as
social networking, new Cultivating influential ‘‘Robot Big V’’ accounts
on Weibo, etc.)
(1) Call system in virtual social account management module in the
social network generation ‘‘social robot’’ on the account, the steps as
Fig. 3, first based on user input contains character, political views, hob-
bies, and other faith identity information of ‘‘social robot’’ Background
Vector, search for a collection of users on social networks with the
L. Chen et al.
identity background closest to the ‘‘social robot’’. Then, from the users’
account information in the group, find out the account information
suitable for the identity background of the ‘‘social robot’’, including
gender, age, location, and location. Work nature, personal profile, etc.;
finally, randomly generate the name of the ‘‘social robot’’ based on the
English name generation rules, register a social network account, and
fill in the account information obtained by mining.
(2) Call system in virtual social account management module ‘‘social
robots’’ disguised as a social network regular account, as the process of
Fig. 4, the analog standard social networking accounts tweets published
and subject interactions. Among them, the simulation tweets release
behavior first part of the collection and ‘‘social robot’’ status similar
background user nearly three days of the tweet’s text, and then use
the collected tweets training based on Markov model ‘‘social robots’’
account push Wen generation model, and finally the model is based
on generating tweets and use of ‘‘social robot’’ account number at
the regular time release period to a social network ; simulation topic
interactions section first detects a social day on the web a hot topic
and the ‘‘social robot’’ concerned user Tweets published, and then
collect behavioral data (including likes and comment texts) of users
with similar identity backgrounds of ‘‘social robots’’ on the detected
topics or tweets, and then use the collected comment text content
to train based on Markov model of ‘‘social robot’’ account comments
generation model, and then generate comment text based on the model,
and the use of ‘‘social robot’’ account at the regular time publish period
to detect the topic or tweets of the comments section, and finally
statistics and ‘‘social robot’’ body parts background similar user thumbs
proportions, if the ratio is more excellent than 60%, the use of ‘‘social
robot’’ account at a regular time period thumbs detected subject or text
push.
(3) Call system social network behavior-related boot block is ‘‘social
robot’’ to attract a large number of powder wire, as the process of Fig. 5,
first, generates target ‘‘big social robot V’’, and the account number 200
is the ‘‘social robot’’. Then use the social network behavior guidance
execution scheduling module proposed by the social network weapon
research and development to guide users to follow the ‘‘social robot’’
account’s tweets. When the number of fans of each ‘‘social robot’’
account has exceeded 50, based on the ‘‘social robot’’ ‘‘Account’s fans’’
cognitive model generates tweets that allow them to like, comment,
and repost. And they can use the target ‘‘social robot big V’’ account to
post it on social networks. And then they use the ‘‘social robot’’ account
to repost the tweet, and accompanying guide ‘‘social robot’’ account
followers. They following target ‘‘social robot big V’’ account comment
text, and then target ‘‘social robot big V’’ account number regularly to
express their views on hot topics, and the use of ‘‘social robot’’ account
in the tweets were comments, point praise and forward, the process
cycle to the target ‘‘social robot big V’’ number of fans over a certain
value.
8.2. Auxiliary campaign tool based on social network behavior guidance
The social network behavior guidance system designed by the social
network weapon research and development can also provide system
users with guidance on public opinion and voter voting behavior on
social networks during elections, thereby increasing the success rate of
elections. The specific implementation process is shown in Fig. 6. Here,
we have been based on the assumption that (1) an application in the
social network has trained several ‘‘social robot on the big V’’ account
and hundreds of ‘‘social robot’’ accounts. So the first use of social
networking environment analysis find out from the relevant module
‘‘social robot big V’’ account and ‘‘social robot’’ account posted tweets
can all propagation to voters account (end of the path voters account).
Then it can follow the times for each user on the path to boot, making
them Candidates who agree with the system users’ hope to succeed. The
specific method is to first generate cognitive model, and then generate
tweets that can guide it based on the cognitive model, and use the
‘‘social robot big V’’ account and ‘‘social robot’’ chsep= account posted
to social networks until they were successfully booted.
13
Journal of Information Security and Applications 64 (2022) 103060
8.3. Public opinion guidance on important social events
Weapons development social network behavior designed primers
guide system guides system users a social network user groups on
heavy solutions to social events in the right direction, the specific
processes, such as Fig. 7 below. Here, we also assume that several
‘‘social robot big V’’ accounts and hundreds of ‘‘social robot’’ accounts
have been cultivated on social networks. First, use the critical node
discovery module of social networks to find out the social network’s
most influential social network account set 𝑈𝑚𝑎𝑥 , and use voters to
guide the collection 𝑈𝑚𝑎𝑥 in social networking accounts. And then find
the social network of all accounts on the use social networks and user-
generated cognitive model. The module generates its mental model and
finally generates tweets based on the cognitive model that can guide
each social network account to develop in the right direction on critical
social topics or events, and use the ‘‘social robot big V’’ account and
‘‘social robot’’ The account is posted on social networks.
9. Conclusion
In recent years, emerging network media such as social networks
and mobile communication networks have played an important or-
ganizational and planning role in a series of major events, which
are likely to cause extremely serious threats to national security and
even the international community’s stability. We analyzed and clarified
social network actors, environment, scene, manipulation and ethical
framework. We conclude that social public opinion weapons are mainly
divided into Bot, Botnet, Troll, Manipulate real people and events,
Cyborg and Hacked or stolen. Because social networking is seen as a
new weapon in the great powers’ battle ground arsenal, it has been
the subject of widespread military research. All countries continue to
strengthen the research on basic cognitive theories. With the prominent
role of social media in modern warfare, its combat use has become
increasingly widespread and has gradually become a force multiplier
in modern warfare. At present, the deployment of weapons directed by
social network users in major countries is mainly focused on incident
and public opinion reconnaissance, sentiment analysis, and active inter-
vention. Our research enumerates the social weapon component model
and software architecture. In short, all countries are using social media
to spread political propaganda and influence the digital information
ecosystem. This article enhances our understanding and development
trend of public opinion wars in the social network, and proposes an
architecture system for the social weapon arsenal. The technical means,
scale, scope, and precision of social media weapons have been con-
tinuously improved. It is gaining momentum towards fundamentally
reshaping cyberspace.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This study was funded by the National Natural Science Founda-
tion of China (Grant number 61862008, U1636208, 61902013), Shi-
jiazhuang Science and Technology Research and Development Plan
(Grant No. 201130351A) and Beihang Youth Top Talent Support Pro-
gram (Grant No. YWF-20-BJ-J-1038). Long Chen and Jianguo Chen
contributed equally to this work. The early part of the version was ac-
cepted in the 20th European Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security
as conference oral presentation. And this is a continuing, deepen, and
broaden research version for the official publication. We would like to
thank the reviewer and editors for their professional advice, which has
been of great help to our article adjustment and further research.
L. Chen et al.
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