Computational propaganda is the use of computational tools (algorithms and automation) to distribute misleading information using social media networks.
The advances in digital technologies and social media resulted in enhancement in methods of propaganda.
Autonomous agents (internet bots) can analyze big data collected from social media and Internet of things in order to ensure manipulating public opinion in a targeted way, and what is more, to mimic real people in the social media.
[1][2] Digital technology enhance well-established traditional methods of manipulation with public opinion: appeals to people's emotions and biases circumvent rational thinking and promote specific ideas.
[3] A pioneering work[4] in identifying and analyzing of the concept has been done by the team of Philip N. Howard at the Oxford Internet Institute who since 2012 have been investigating computational propaganda,[5] following earlier Howard's research of the effects of social media on general public published, e.g., in his 2005 book New Media Campaigns and the Managed Citizen and earlier articles.