During the 2016 US election, about a fifth of all political tweets were posted by bots. For the UK Brexit vote of the same year, a third. An Oxford Internet Institute report from 2019 found evidence of bots being used to spread propaganda in fifty countries. These tended to be simple programs mindlessly repeating slogans. For example, a quarter-million pro-Saudi “We all have trust in [crown prince] Mohammed bin Salman” tweets were posted following the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
