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How difficult is it to detect Twitter bots? I would have thought there'd be lots of obvious signals (who the bot is friends with, what they post, how often they
by seanwilson 9y ago
How difficult is it to detect Twitter bots? I would have thought there'd be lots of obvious signals (who the bot is friends with, what they post, how often they post, how old their account is).
- weego 9y agoIt must be relatively easy to find bots, but I imagine Twitter has a decent size ecosystem of neutral / positive bots for various QoL tasks that would be collateral damage as intent is much harder to determine.
- ablation 9y agoIt feels as though Twitter has a vested interest in making its network seem as active as possible, irrespective of quality of interaction. In a way, Twitter's userbase appears like a captive audience - they've no desire to leave, no matter how bad it gets. Oddly masochistic in a way.
- rmetzler 9y agoYou could argue that twitter bots don't do much damage. If you don't want to follow a bot, just don't follow them. They should be easily recognizable. People who did the auto-follow thing were screwed though.
- tedunangst 9y agoBots do damage search and hashtags and other discovery mechanisms beyond just your following list.
- ablation 9y agoNo, that's not how Twitter bots work. They damage the overall ecosystem in both active and passive ways. Of course you can choose to not follow someone/something, but they can still harm your experience as a user.
- rmetzler 9y agoSomeone should create a pattern catalog for bots to enable easier discussion about them.