In the United States, a recent study revealed that Twitter “robots” (accounts managed by robots) are used to promote vaping and thus highlight the reduction of health risks associated with e-cigarettes. This initiative could obviously have consequences on the image of vaping.
TWITTER TO PROMOTE THE E-CIGARETTE AND RISK REDUCTION?
Scientists at San Diego State University (SDSU) in the United States have found that much of the discussion about the effects of e-cigarettes on the social network “Twitter” was initiated by robots. If we can think of the dissemination of "fake news" this does not seem to be the case given that most of the automated messages were in favor of the vape.
More than 70% of the tweets analyzed by the researchers appear to have been distributed by bots, which are increasingly used to influence public opinion and sell products while masquerading as real people.
The discovery of this e-cigarette promotion by robots seems unexpected. Basically, the research team had started using Twitter data to study the use and perception of e-cigarettes in the United States.
« The use of bots on social media is a real problem for our analyzes" , said Ming-Hsiang Tsou, from San Diego State University.
She adds : " Since most of them are 'trade-oriented' or 'political in nature' they will skew the results and provide the wrong conclusions for analysis."
66% POSITIVE TWEETS FOR VAPOTAGE!
These results come as the social network Twitter said it would remove millions of fake accounts and also introduce new mechanisms for 
identify and combat spam and abuse on its platform.
« Some robots can be easily removed based on their content and their behavior"Said Tsou adding" But some robots look like human beings and are more difficult to detect. This is now a hot topic in social media analysis"
For the study, the team compiled a random sample of nearly 194 000 tweets across the United States, published between October 2015 and February 2016. A random sample of 973 tweets was analyzed. Of these, 887 tweets have been identified as being posted by individuals, a category that may also include robots.
The team found that over 66% of people's tweets were "favorable" to the use of electronic cigarettes. 59% of individuals also shared tweets about how they personally use e-cigarettes. Additionally, the team was able to identify teenage Twitter users, estimating that more than 55% of their tweets were “favorable” to e-cigarettes.
In the tweets referring to the harmfulness of vaping, 54% of consumers said that e-cigarettes are not harmful or are significantly less harmful than tobacco.
« The large presence of robot-run accounts raises the question of whether other health-related topics are motivated by these accounts" , said Lourdes S Martinez, SDSU researcher who led the study. " We do not know the sources, and do not know if they are paid or may have business interests“Said Martinez.
As a reminder in August 2017, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had supported a project of almost 200 000 dollars that was to analyze the tweets about electronic cigarettes.
