8 ms·

I used to work at Twitter, so not sure I can get into specific numbers, but they remove hundreds of thousands to millions of accounts every day (literally every

by sgk284 9y ago

I used to work at Twitter, so not sure I can get into specific numbers, but they remove hundreds of thousands to millions of accounts every day (literally every day). It's particularly tricky because bots aren't inherently against the ToS (e.g. the earthquake bot cited in the article), so you can't just ban based on "Is this account behaving like a human?". Many "bots" though are actually giant networks of humans being orchestrated and they share things that are compelling to a subset of real users (e.g. Hillary did this bad thing... lock her up), so now real users are retweeting and muddying any signal that was there to detect a bot network. It's an incredibly challenging problem at scale and you basically only see the < 1% that Twitter missed. They've got a pretty sizable team that works on it so hopefully in a few years they'll have solved it much like Gmail has mostly solved spam.

djsumdog 9y ago
I think it was the 99% Invisible podcast that did an interesting report about whole networks of people who were paid in Mexico to spread election messages; and these networks are often reused by gangs or other organizations to promote stuff or harass opponents. So in this case, they're not bots. They're actual humans, because it's cheaper to do that than pay people to write scripts.
- amsilprotag 9y ago
  I don't remember that 99pi. Was it Reply All? https://gimletmedia.com/episode/112-the-prophet/ https://gimletmedia.com/episode/112-the-prophet/ After Andrea is attacked by a stranger in Mexico City, she just wants to figure out who the guy was. Investigating this question drops her right into the middle of one of Mexico’s biggest conspiracies.
  - djsumdog 9y ago
    Ah yes, sorry you're right. It was Reply All.
- kakarot 9y ago
  Additionally, you can train a human to become better at astroturfing over time, and train your network as a whole to be resilient to partial takedowns. These things are much easier to orchestrate than bots, especially if your specialization is not CS but scamming / manipulating opinions, and in many cases, especially with scale, human labor can actually be more expensive. Of course, subsidizing the labor to impoverished countries definitely helps; these networks tend to lack the sophistication used in more sensitive political or industrial topics. Sometimes for national or global campaigns you'll find a mix of both cheap labor, a small team of experienced astroturfers with a good grip on their persona acquisition and management, and bot networks, each targeting a different set of demographics. If your target demo is sufficiently ignorant or radicalized in their beliefs, it doesn't take much to convince them and bots will do just fine.
djsumdog 9y ago
> much like Gmail has mostly solved spam. Gmail has not solved spam. Gmail and Microsoft dump so much legitimate e-mail that it's basically made e-mail totally unusable: http://penguindreams.org/blog/how-google-and-microsoft-made-email-unreliable/ http://penguindreams.org/blog/how-google-and-microsoft-made-...
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  No they don't. They, like most abuse sensitive recipients, don't accept mail from small indie servers, so people know not to use small indie servers to send mail.
  - bzbarsky 9y ago
    It's not just small indie servers. They do "reputation scoring" of senders that penalize them for things like sending plaintext mail. See https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/mozilla.governance/WWKmxU4U_K0/4PAWTnWjBAAJ https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/mozilla.governance/WWK... for more details of one example.
  - cookiecaper 9y ago
    Right! We can't trust those "small indie servers" on the world wide web. Who knows where they've been?! Make sure you use mail servers furnished by Google, Microsoft, and other NSA-approved facilitators. They only cost $10 / mo / user, that is easily affordable for anyone who is not a Russian agent tricking the unwashed masses into preventing Hillary Clinton from ascending to her rightful place as ----- errrm, uh, from "corrupting democracy". Any non-Google, non-Microsoft mailers will be blocked, lest users be asked to renew their VIAGRA prescription from a Canadian pharmacy, or a non-compliant political message be received. It's for your own good, citizen! Thank you, wise and great Google! Thank you, wise and great Microsoft! I wouldn't know how to use this free, non-controlled computer network without your benevolent work! unsnark: Seriously, the way that Google et al have captured "anti-spam" mechanisms and converted them into "pay a big company for your mail" mechanisms is extremely sad, and speaks to the true forces at work behind all the warm and fuzzies about an "open web".
  - 9y ago
Retra 9y ago
Maybe it's the "one click to share" behavior - an extremely low-resolution action - that is the problem? Perhaps things would be easier to fix if the human engagement component were more than "can you press a button?"

by sgk284 9y ago

djsumdog 9y ago

I think it was the 99% Invisible podcast that did an interesting report about whole networks of people who were paid in Mexico to spread election messages; and these networks are often reused by gangs or other organizations to promote stuff or harass opponents. So in this case, they're not bots. They're actual humans, because it's cheaper to do that than pay people to write scripts.

amsilprotag 9y ago
I don't remember that 99pi. Was it Reply All? https://gimletmedia.com/episode/112-the-prophet/ https://gimletmedia.com/episode/112-the-prophet/ After Andrea is attacked by a stranger in Mexico City, she just wants to figure out who the guy was. Investigating this question drops her right into the middle of one of Mexico’s biggest conspiracies.
- djsumdog 9y ago
  Ah yes, sorry you're right. It was Reply All.
kakarot 9y ago
Additionally, you can train a human to become better at astroturfing over time, and train your network as a whole to be resilient to partial takedowns. These things are much easier to orchestrate than bots, especially if your specialization is not CS but scamming / manipulating opinions, and in many cases, especially with scale, human labor can actually be more expensive. Of course, subsidizing the labor to impoverished countries definitely helps; these networks tend to lack the sophistication used in more sensitive political or industrial topics. Sometimes for national or global campaigns you'll find a mix of both cheap labor, a small team of experienced astroturfers with a good grip on their persona acquisition and management, and bot networks, each targeting a different set of demographics. If your target demo is sufficiently ignorant or radicalized in their beliefs, it doesn't take much to convince them and bots will do just fine.

djsumdog 9y ago

> much like Gmail has mostly solved spam. Gmail has not solved spam. Gmail and Microsoft dump so much legitimate e-mail that it's basically made e-mail totally unusable: http://penguindreams.org/blog/how-google-and-microsoft-made-email-unreliable/ http://penguindreams.org/blog/how-google-and-microsoft-made-...

fjsolwmv 9y ago
No they don't. They, like most abuse sensitive recipients, don't accept mail from small indie servers, so people know not to use small indie servers to send mail.
- bzbarsky 9y ago
  It's not just small indie servers. They do "reputation scoring" of senders that penalize them for things like sending plaintext mail. See https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/mozilla.governance/WWKmxU4U_K0/4PAWTnWjBAAJ https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/mozilla.governance/WWK... for more details of one example.
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  Right! We can't trust those "small indie servers" on the world wide web. Who knows where they've been?! Make sure you use mail servers furnished by Google, Microsoft, and other NSA-approved facilitators. They only cost $10 / mo / user, that is easily affordable for anyone who is not a Russian agent tricking the unwashed masses into preventing Hillary Clinton from ascending to her rightful place as ----- errrm, uh, from "corrupting democracy". Any non-Google, non-Microsoft mailers will be blocked, lest users be asked to renew their VIAGRA prescription from a Canadian pharmacy, or a non-compliant political message be received. It's for your own good, citizen! Thank you, wise and great Google! Thank you, wise and great Microsoft! I wouldn't know how to use this free, non-controlled computer network without your benevolent work! unsnark: Seriously, the way that Google et al have captured "anti-spam" mechanisms and converted them into "pay a big company for your mail" mechanisms is extremely sad, and speaks to the true forces at work behind all the warm and fuzzies about an "open web".
- 9y ago

Retra 9y ago

Maybe it's the "one click to share" behavior - an extremely low-resolution action - that is the problem? Perhaps things would be easier to fix if the human engagement component were more than "can you press a button?"