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March 14, 2023Civil War Book Review148 citationsOpen Access

Battling bots: Experiences and strategies to mitigate fraudulent responses in online surveys

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BGBrittney K. GoodrichMFMarieke FentonJPJerrod Penn

Key Points

  • To raise awareness regarding the growing threat of fraudulent automated responses in online surveys and outline strategies to safeguard data integrity.
  • Reviewed operational experiences and data vulnerabilities encountered across two incentivized online survey studies.
  • Assessed patterns of automated bot activity and fraudulent entries targeting participant compensation and social media recruitment channels.
  • Demonstrated that online surveys offering monetary compensation face substantial influxes of fraudulent entries and automated bot submissions.
  • Identified critical procedural vulnerabilities in open web-based surveys and established actionable prevention and screening strategies for survey research.

Abstract

Abstract Declining survey response rates have driven many researchers to seek out cost‐effective methods of increasing participation, such as conducting surveys online, paying incentives, and using social media to engage hard‐to‐reach populations. Malicious actors can exploit the monetary incentives and anonymity of online surveys, threatening the integrity of survey data. We share two recent experiences conducting online surveys that were inundated with fraudulent responses. Our objective is to increase awareness of this emerging issue and offer guidance for others to mitigate the effects of fraudulent responders in their own research.

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Cite This Study

Goodrich et al. (2023) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/69d93aa49a6164e50fa3c49bhttps://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13353
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