USPTO Patent Application: Social Media Authenticity Analysis

ChangeBridge: Patent Apps - Business Methods (G06Q)

Published September 16th, 2025

Detected March 23rd, 2026

Summary

The USPTO has published a patent application (US20260081905A1) for a system designed to analyze social media authenticity and detect coordinated influence operations. Filed by Clemson University, the application details a method for identifying potentially malicious manipulation through statistical analysis of account behavior and flag distributions.

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What changed

This document is a publication of a patent application (US20260081905A1) filed by Clemson University. The application describes a system and method for analyzing social media activity to detect coordinated influence operations. Key features include identifying conversation topics, flagging accounts based on attributes, determining influence exertion through statistical analysis of flag distributions, and using statistical outlier detection to identify anomalous objects of influence and coordinated networks. The system aims to distinguish between authentic coordination and malicious manipulation via behavioral pattern analysis.

As this is a patent application, it does not impose direct compliance obligations on regulated entities. However, companies operating in the social media and technology sectors, particularly those involved in platform security, content moderation, or digital advertising, may find the described technologies relevant for internal development or as a basis for future intellectual property considerations. The filing date was September 16, 2025.

Source document (simplified)

← USPTO Patent Applications

SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SOCIAL MEDIA AUTHENTICITY ANALYSIS AND COORDINATED INFLUENCE DETECTION

Application US20260081905A1 Kind: A1 Mar 19, 2026

Assignee

Clemson University

Inventors

Darren Linvill, Patrick Warren

Abstract

This is a system for authenticity analysis of social media activity having flags that can represent an indicator that a social media account may be participating in a coordinated influence operation, and a computer system in communication with social media platforms. The computer system identifies conversation topics, searches for indicators that social media accounts are involved with conversation topics, determines sets of social media accounts related to the conversation topics, assigns one or more flags to social media accounts according to account attributes, determines if sets of social media accounts are attempting to exert influence on objects of influence within the conversation topics through statistical analysis of flag distributions, and provides subsets of social media accounts suspected of exerting coordinated influence. The system employs statistical outlier detection to identify anomalous objects of influence, enables detection of coordinated networks and distinguishes between authentic coordination and malicious manipulation using behavioral pattern analysis.