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How about a browser extension or app that highlights suspected bots as you're using Twitter or other social media? How difficult is this problem to solve?
by mjfern 8y ago
How about a browser extension or app that highlights suspected bots as you're using Twitter or other social media? How difficult is this problem to solve?
- craftyguy 8y agoIt would be really easy for the developers to highlight their political adversaries as 'bots', and people would be none the wiser since they forfeited their ability to perform critical thinking to have a 'bot' do it for them.
- nzjrs 8y ago1. What's an acceptable false positive rate before you ignore the extension 2. What's an acceptable false negative rate before the browser extension is politically problematic
- IkmoIkmo 8y agoI'd suspect bots will be able to become much better at avoiding suspicion much faster this way. Any popular extension is basically a free A/B testing environment for bot producers.
- fucking_tragedy 8y agoTwitter's API limits would stifle anything that could be useful. Software that scrapes Twitter and becomes popular would be shutdown for violating ToS. Also, exposing bots on Twitter is how you get the eye of Sauron to notice you. Twitter portrays bots as real users to investors and their advertising clients.