Many pro-Trump hashtags after first debate made by 'tweetbots,' study says

OXFORD, England, Oct. 18 (UPI) -- A quick swell of support Donald Trump received online during the first presidential debate may have been a mirage, according to new research.

University researchers who tracked politically-related hashtags on the social media site concluded that a third of the pro-Trump hashes during the first presidential debate on Sept. 26 (33 percent) were generated by "bots" -- account owners that appear to be human, but are not.

The data found that pro-Clinton hashtags, by contrast, amounted to just 22 percent.

In raw numbers, that means about 576,000 of the pro-Trump tweets -- and 136,600 of Clinton's -- were automated, the researchers said.

The data was compiled and analyzed by the Project on Computational Propaganda, which is comprised of international researchers who study the impact of automated scripts -- computational propaganda -- on public life.

The report also said about 23 percent of neutral tweets, favoring neither candidate, were automated.

"We find that political bots have a modest but strategic role in the U.S. Presidential debates," the report concluded. "The significant rise of Twitter traffic around debate time is mostly from real users who generate original tweets using the more neutral hashtags."

However, researchers didn't have sufficient data to indicate who was behind the automated tweets, or where they geographically originated. Nonetheless, they said such activity does have the potential to influence the political process.

"Political actors and governments worldwide have begun using bots to manipulate public opinion, choke off debate, and muddy political issues," the report said.