Communication Rights for Social Bots?: Options for the Governance of Automated Computer-Generated Online Identities

Social bots, automated agents operating in social networks, are suspected of influencing online debates, opinion-formation processes and thus, the outcome of elections and votes. They do so by contributing to the dissemination of illegal content and disinformation and by jeopardizing an accurate perception of the relevance and popularity of persons, topics, or positions, through their potentially unlimited communication and networking activities, all under the false pretense of human identity. This paper identifies and discusses preventive and repressive governance options for dealing with social bots on state, organizational, and individual levels respecting the constitutional provisions on free expression and opinion-formation.