10.25383/city.6955253.v1 Marco Bastos Marco Bastos Brexit Botnet City, University of London 2018 Brexit Twitter Social media Fake News Sockpuppets Retweet cascades Political bots Sociology Communication Technology and Digital Media Studies 2018-08-13 16:40:54 Figure https://city.figshare.com/articles/figure/Brexit_Botnet/6955253 The image shows the interaction on Twitter between bots and real users during the UK EU membership referendum. Bots or automated accounts are often used as sockpuppets, which are false online identities used to voice opinions and manipulate public opinion while pretending to be another person. The hub and spoke formations shown in the network result from the large volume of retweets triggered by bots, which are effective at rapidly generating cascades.