5 ms·

On the contrary, it would appear that Twitter is incentivized to encourage bots and trolls to flourish. The definition of a bot could be problematic though. If

On the contrary, it would appear that Twitter is incentivized to encourage bots and trolls to flourish. The definition of a bot could be problematic though. If a bot is merely automated posting, then virtually every company, news org, website, and anything else that uses automated posts is a "bot", and are those bad? I don't think so, those are useful. The problematic bots are basically automated trolls. Troll bots increase "engagement" metrics by quite a bit, this is obvious to any person if you look at the automated bot replies to virtually any post from a news agency or anyone with a large twitter following. They also jump onto every hash tag or breaking news event spreading garbage. You'll find dozens of bots making absurd statements followed by bots responding to those bots, and clueless people arguing with the bots. Combine that with the endless seas of human trolls that also jump into everything, and those interactions probably make up a huge amount of usage of Twitter. Twitter remains useful for scanning headlines and breaking news, but outside of that the service is a complete mess.

enos 9y ago
I propose marking bots as such. Keep following useful bots. But users will at least know that a troll is automated and are able to act accordingly without wasting time and energy.
- mv4 9y ago
  "Replicants are like any other machine: they're either a benefit or a hazard." Yes. Make bots legitimate, with verified bot status for ones that are truthful and helpful to the end users.
- golangnews 9y ago
  Posts and interactions like likes or retweets via the api should be marked as automated, but identifying users as bots is problematic and not very useful as there are good bots and bad bots. Many users use some automation and that’s a good thing, e.g. posting blog posts when published, bots to repost top #shithnsays for those who want to follow it, that amusing horse books bot etc. More problematic than bots to me are the many many ways the twitter platform simply rewards the wrong thing, from verified nazis to crowds of trolls and spamming hashtags.
  - enos 9y ago
    Why is it problematic to mark a good bot as a bot?
    - golangnews 9y ago
      It's problematic to identify accounts as bots. Many accounts are partially posting from a bot and partially posting from a human, so what are they? Better to do that at the level of individual posts then the user would see right there that something was posted by the api, and it'd be harder for political spambots for example to flood threads, you could have options to turn off api posts for a thread. This would drive some bots to use selenium etc (perhaps some do already), but I think would be more effective than just marking accounts somehow as 'bot' with fallible detection methods. Also most of the problems on twitter are caused by humans, not bots. Humans can be cruel, harass, bombard victims with messages, threaten them with death, rape etc (this is regularly happening right now to women on twitter), and those are the more problematic interactions. Yes sometimes spambots liking posts or replying to posts are annoying, or the ones that DM you are pretty bad, but they're not as annoying as humans at their worst.
  - michaelmior 9y ago
    What about the many third party Twitter apps some users prefer to use as opposed to the official client?
    - golangnews 9y ago
      They could just identify those as 'posted from x', as twitter should know.
smileysteve 9y ago
Marketing bots and plugins on Twitter are 3 things. - A reason not to pay to advertise on twitter - A way to make the platform look more active than it is - A distraction to users looking for conversations
- grey-area 9y ago
  I think part of the problem here is twitter can't decide what it is. Is it a place for people to chat with friends? Is it a platform for free speech or are there limits to that speech? Is it a platform for brands/people to broadcast to a broad set of followers? Is it a source of news and a place to talk about politics or what is going on? It can't be all of those things.
  - nasredin 9y ago
    Twitter's UI is an example of this. It seems it was not designed with any purpose or philosophy in mind. It is not good for reading text. Not good for reading conversations. Not good for looking at images. I do admit that they got the scroll until your finger is sore thing down.
FussyZeus 9y ago
> The definition of a bot could be problematic though. If a bot is merely automated posting, then virtually every company, news org, website, and anything else that uses automated posts is a "bot", and are those bad? I don't think so, those are useful. The problematic bots are basically automated trolls. Except if you see that for example the BBC's World News account is a bot, that makes sense because the BBC isn't a person, it's an organization. The problem is bots masquerading as individual people.
mv4 9y ago
Bots can be useful. Good bots (ones that don't pretend to be humans or ones that don't fake human engagement) should be allowed and regulated. The bad ones though ruin the experience for everyone (and defraud advertisers). I've previously attempted to classify bots somewhat: https://medium.com/@iTrendTV/dumb-bots-have-ruined-twitter-smart-bots-will-save-it-aa141a1c4959 https://medium.com/@iTrendTV/dumb-bots-have-ruined-twitter-s...
mv4 9y ago
Fun story: I once wrote a primitive Twitter bot as an experiment, and forgot about it. It's been running on a Raspberry Pi unattended for a few years now, tweeting random stuff and periodically "engaging" with a predefined set of topics. It has a Klout score. It has more followers than me. [edit: spelling]
- lucisferre 9y ago
  I wonder how many are other bots? Also, Klout still exists?
  - mv4 9y ago
    Millions. Klout still exists, apparently. I don't see many people referencing it anymore though.
- nasredin 9y ago
  Do me a favor and check up on it once in a while. If it becomes self-aware, we may have a problem. I've seen this movie before somewhere...
  - mv4 9y ago
    I need to make a kill switch of some kind.
eeeeeeeeeeeee 9y ago
Couldn't Twitter immediately improve "reputation" by having people display badges based on verified link to other accounts (social, whatever)? Maybe even take it as far as Airbnb does with the copy of your license. I use Twitter daily, but mostly as a news feed, or with people I already know in real life. There is no point in engaging with a random person on Twitter, because it's quite often a bot or someone that wants a fight.
zitterbewegung 9y ago
Its still useful for providing feedback.

enos 9y ago

I propose marking bots as such. Keep following useful bots. But users will at least know that a troll is automated and are able to act accordingly without wasting time and energy.

mv4 9y ago
"Replicants are like any other machine: they're either a benefit or a hazard." Yes. Make bots legitimate, with verified bot status for ones that are truthful and helpful to the end users.
golangnews 9y ago
Posts and interactions like likes or retweets via the api should be marked as automated, but identifying users as bots is problematic and not very useful as there are good bots and bad bots. Many users use some automation and that’s a good thing, e.g. posting blog posts when published, bots to repost top #shithnsays for those who want to follow it, that amusing horse books bot etc. More problematic than bots to me are the many many ways the twitter platform simply rewards the wrong thing, from verified nazis to crowds of trolls and spamming hashtags.
- enos 9y ago
  Why is it problematic to mark a good bot as a bot?
  - golangnews 9y ago
    It's problematic to identify accounts as bots. Many accounts are partially posting from a bot and partially posting from a human, so what are they? Better to do that at the level of individual posts then the user would see right there that something was posted by the api, and it'd be harder for political spambots for example to flood threads, you could have options to turn off api posts for a thread. This would drive some bots to use selenium etc (perhaps some do already), but I think would be more effective than just marking accounts somehow as 'bot' with fallible detection methods. Also most of the problems on twitter are caused by humans, not bots. Humans can be cruel, harass, bombard victims with messages, threaten them with death, rape etc (this is regularly happening right now to women on twitter), and those are the more problematic interactions. Yes sometimes spambots liking posts or replying to posts are annoying, or the ones that DM you are pretty bad, but they're not as annoying as humans at their worst.
- michaelmior 9y ago
  What about the many third party Twitter apps some users prefer to use as opposed to the official client?
  - golangnews 9y ago
    They could just identify those as 'posted from x', as twitter should know.

smileysteve 9y ago

Marketing bots and plugins on Twitter are 3 things. - A reason not to pay to advertise on twitter - A way to make the platform look more active than it is - A distraction to users looking for conversations

grey-area 9y ago
I think part of the problem here is twitter can't decide what it is. Is it a place for people to chat with friends? Is it a platform for free speech or are there limits to that speech? Is it a platform for brands/people to broadcast to a broad set of followers? Is it a source of news and a place to talk about politics or what is going on? It can't be all of those things.
- nasredin 9y ago
  Twitter's UI is an example of this. It seems it was not designed with any purpose or philosophy in mind. It is not good for reading text. Not good for reading conversations. Not good for looking at images. I do admit that they got the scroll until your finger is sore thing down.

FussyZeus 9y ago

> The definition of a bot could be problematic though. If a bot is merely automated posting, then virtually every company, news org, website, and anything else that uses automated posts is a "bot", and are those bad? I don't think so, those are useful. The problematic bots are basically automated trolls. Except if you see that for example the BBC's World News account is a bot, that makes sense because the BBC isn't a person, it's an organization. The problem is bots masquerading as individual people.

mv4 9y ago

Bots can be useful. Good bots (ones that don't pretend to be humans or ones that don't fake human engagement) should be allowed and regulated. The bad ones though ruin the experience for everyone (and defraud advertisers). I've previously attempted to classify bots somewhat: https://medium.com/@iTrendTV/dumb-bots-have-ruined-twitter-smart-bots-will-save-it-aa141a1c4959 https://medium.com/@iTrendTV/dumb-bots-have-ruined-twitter-s...

mv4 9y ago

Fun story: I once wrote a primitive Twitter bot as an experiment, and forgot about it. It's been running on a Raspberry Pi unattended for a few years now, tweeting random stuff and periodically "engaging" with a predefined set of topics. It has a Klout score. It has more followers than me. [edit: spelling]

lucisferre 9y ago
I wonder how many are other bots? Also, Klout still exists?
- mv4 9y ago
  Millions. Klout still exists, apparently. I don't see many people referencing it anymore though.
nasredin 9y ago
Do me a favor and check up on it once in a while. If it becomes self-aware, we may have a problem. I've seen this movie before somewhere...
- mv4 9y ago
  I need to make a kill switch of some kind.

eeeeeeeeeeeee 9y ago

Couldn't Twitter immediately improve "reputation" by having people display badges based on verified link to other accounts (social, whatever)? Maybe even take it as far as Airbnb does with the copy of your license. I use Twitter daily, but mostly as a news feed, or with people I already know in real life. There is no point in engaging with a random person on Twitter, because it's quite often a bot or someone that wants a fight.

zitterbewegung 9y ago

Its still useful for providing feedback.