Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Application Of The Benford’S Law To Social Bots And Information Operations Activities, Lale Madahali, Margeret Hall

Interdisciplinary Informatics Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Benford's law shows the pattern of behavior in normal systems. It states that in natural systems digits' frequency have a certain pattern such that the occurrence of first digits in numbers are unevenly distributed. In systems with natural behavior, numbers begin with a “1” are more common than numbers beginning with “9”. It implies that if the distribution of first digits deviate from the expected distribution, it is indicative of fraud. It has many applications in forensic accounting, stock markets, finding abnormal data in survey data, and natural science. We investigate whether social media bots and Information Operations activities are …