# BotShape: A Novel Social Bots Detection Approach via Behavioral Patterns

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.10214 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.10214/

## Key facts

- Cited by 11 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 8 of its 34 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Mar 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [Semi-Supervised Classification with Graph Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.02907/) (2016)
- [Inductive Representation Learning on Large Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.02216/) (2017)
- [Scalable and Generalizable Social Bot Detection through Data Selection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.09179/) (2019)
- [The paradigm-shift of social spambots: Evidence, theories, and tools for the arms race](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1701.03017/) (2017)
- [Heterogeneity-aware Twitter Bot Detection with Relational Graph Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.02927/) (2021)
- [BotRGCN: Twitter Bot Detection with Relational Graph Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.13092/) (2021)
- [Online User Profiling to Detect Social Bots on Twitter](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.05966/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 11 of 11)

- [BotTriNet: A Unified and Efficient Embedding for Social Bots Detection via Metric Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03144/) (2023)
- [FineEHR: Refine Clinical Note Representations to Improve Mortality Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.11794/) (2023)
- [Comprehensive evaluation of Mal-API-2019 dataset by machine learning in malware detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.02232/) (2024)
- [MedLens: Improve Mortality Prediction Via Medical Signs Selecting and Regression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.11742/) (2023)
- [An Integrative Paradigm for Enhanced Stroke Prediction: Synergizing XGBoost and xDeepFM Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.16430/) (2023)
- [Towards Robust Vision Transformer via Masked Adaptive Ensemble](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.15385/) (2024)
- [On-ramp and Off-ramp Traffic Flows Estimation Based on A Data-driven Transfer Learning Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.03538/) (2023)
- [A Transfer Learning Framework for Proactive Ramp Metering Performance Assessment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.03542/) (2023)
- [FakeSwarm: Improving Fake News Detection with Swarming Characteristics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.19194/) (2023)
- [Graph-based Fake Account Detection: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.06541/) (2025)
- [Bot Meets Shortcut: How Can LLMs Aid in Handling Unknown Invariance OOD Scenarios?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.08455/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

An essential topic in online social network security is how to accurately detect bot accounts and relieve their harmful impacts (e.g., misinformation, rumor, and spam) on genuine users. Based on a real-world data set, we construct behavioral sequences from raw event logs. After extracting critical characteristics from behavioral time series, we observe differences between bots and genuine users and similar patterns among bot accounts. We present a novel social bot detection system BotShape, to automatically catch behavioral sequences and characteristics as features for classifiers to detect bots. We evaluate the detection performance of our system in ground-truth instances, showing an average accuracy of 98.52% and an average f1-score of 96.65% on various types of classifiers. After comparing it with other research, we conclude that BotShape is a novel approach to profiling an account, which could improve performance for most methods by providing significant behavioral features.