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The author presents no evidence of these accounts being bots other than them being closely connected and cliquey. She makes that inference very quickly, and fr

The author presents no evidence of these accounts being bots other than them being closely connected and cliquey. She makes that inference very quickly, and from then on, they are just referred to as "bots". I am 100% sure there are bots, but I am highly skeptical that Yang Gang is the worst offender here or stands out in any way compared to other campaigns. In fact a quick check on twitteraudit.com tells that he might be better than others, although I don't know how good their fake follower detection works. I have been following this campaign since a few months, and I can attest that it has pulled in a large number of voters who were not politically inclined, the members are very passionate, and also that Yang Gang is quite cliquey and live in an echo chamber. Given those facts, I won't be surprised if those accounts were mostly real people. Full disclosure: I like Yang.

shiftpgdn 7y ago
The whole time I was reading this I was thinking that she almost certainly has my account flagged as a bot. I only use Twitter for infosec and politics and lately about all I do is RT Yang (and Zach) tweets.
- vjeux 7y ago
  > “ For example, my bot tracker focuses on bots that post on average 70 times a day or more. While a human being can certainly post to Twitter a hundred times in a day, it’s unlikely that a real human being would post a hundred times a day every day without some kind of automation helping out.” If that sentence is correct, you’re unlikely going to get flagged by the bot.
speedplane 7y ago
> The author presents no evidence of these accounts being bots other than them being closely connected and cliquey. The sad truth is that the vast majority of bots are extremely unsophisticated, they don't even try to hide their IP address through a proxy server, and basic tools like Google Analytics can identify this. In Google Analytics, just find the "Network" section, and see how much of your traffic is from "amazon web services", and just block all of it. It may not block sophisticated scrapers, and it could potentially harm legitimate users (e.g., amazon based VPN services), but it's amazing how much "bot" traffic is identifiable. The only real bot traffic that's hard to identify are actual people with machines that have been compromised.
partiallypro 7y ago
The "everyone is a bot" thing is insanely stupid. It's not just happening with Yang, it happens with Trump, Bernie, and Tulsi (generally the others don't get accused.) Some people just can't imagine a world where so many people disagree with them that they make up reasons why it's happening. Yes bots exist, but one of the greatest tricks Russia has pulled is making people believe they are bigger and more powerful than they are.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
godelski 7y ago
> In fact a quick check on twitteraudit.com Yang: 95%; 1,061,978 Real 48,878 Fake Bernie: 69%; 7,052,953 Real 3,124,469 Fake Warren: 84%; 2,966,118 Real 560,776 Fake Buttigieg: 93%; 1,481,598 Real 102,999 Fake Biden: 84%; 3,375,998 Real 619,266 Fake Trump: 79%; 56,463,132 Real 14,292,673 Fake
- gremlinsinc 7y ago
  Bernie and warren have multiple official accounts. At least two I know of for each. @berniesanders: 69% | 7,052,953 Real | 3,124,469 Fake @sensanders: 74% | 6,480,666 Real | 2,171,758 Fake @senwarren: 68% | 3,668,103 Real | 1,694,620 Fake @ewarren: 84% | 2,966,118 Real | 560,776 Fake So cumulatively the scores are more like: Bernie: 71% Total non-fake followers: 8,237,392 Warren: 79% Total non-fake followers: 4,939,601 At the end of the day the percentage/ratio of real to fake doesn't matter. What matters is the REAL people following a candidate, Besides trump, Bernie beats all others. Disclaimer: My account looks like a Bernie Bot, but my followers real % is 85 which actually surprised me lol. I'd support Yang or Tulsi. Probably not anybody else running. I'm an independent, and align more with leftist/socialist libertarianism (not the GOP think-tank ran version of American libertarianism). I don't just vote for any 'blue' because they're blue. I don't do party politics.
  - godelski 7y ago
    I do find it odd, though, that this piece calls out the person with the lowest bot count. Why target a specific person if your concern is bots? Why target the person with the least amount of bots? It makes the post feel disingenuous. If we trust twitter audit over her (which tbf I don't see any good reason to trust one over another) then her piece seems at best naive and at worse a hit piece. Knowing Yang Gang, and knowing that there's a lot of people turning from Trump (they literally pride themselves on it [0,1,2,3,4], I can go on pretty easily with a lot like [2]), it makes me inclined to believe that the analysis is naive (I'm hesitant to call this a hit piece) because she mentioned the suspicion of MAGA and YG. MAGA and YG connections makes a lot of sense if you just checked out the subreddit for ten minutes. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/et3v4z/42_of_yang_voters_wont_support_the_dem_nominee_if/ https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/et3v4z/... [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/et24dh/im_a_conservative_guy_donating_to_a_political/ https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/et24dh/... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/ekhp4o/im_a_trump_supporter_whos_yang_curious/ https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/ekhp4o/... [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/epq2dd/this_prolife_trumpster_actually_shutdown_his/ https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/epq2dd/... [4] https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/cn5vsl/dear_newcomers_this_is_a_different_type_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/cn5vsl/...
maire 7y ago
> The author presents no evidence of these accounts being bots other than them being closely connected and cliquey. I had the same reaction. I follow all of the candidates on twitter. Most of the campaigns are periodic quite frankly boring posts by the candidates. Yang lets his gang do most of the tweeting and he retweets their posts. In person he does the same thing. There is a lot of audience participation during his speeches. This makes his campaign more lively. The reason why I doubt they are bots is that the tweets are intelligent. About a week ago I tweeted something about Yang that was factually incorrect. Someone tweeted back within minutes and very politely corrected what I said. We had a few tweet exchanges then someone else jumped in and said that my confusion was something that they would take back to the campaign. A few days later Yang mentioned my confusion in one of his interviews. I am not exactly sure if this was a coincidence...
grumple 7y ago
> The author presents no evidence of these accounts being bots other than them being closely connected and cliquey. Multiple accounts with the same name, image, and profile, coupled with radical changes in the types of content posted, and also with superhuman (clearly automated) posting rates? What more evidence do you need?
- godelski 7y ago
  > What more evidence do you need? HN tends to be a more technical place. So when we have two competing narratives and analyses people become suspicious (high number or retweets, high number of likes). When one analysis basically characterizes bots similarly to how the president tweets, people get suspicious. When one analysis characterizes bots as having expected behavior of users (Yangers having connections to MAGA, which was a MAJOR part of her analysis), people become suspicious. When the author says that they only identified 3 bots from Trump's twitter account, one becomes suspicious. When you link to Mother Jones as your coup de ta and the article doesn't characterize your link's words, people become suspicious. So forgive me if I personally need more evidence.
- raz32dust 7y ago
  I didn't say there weren't any bots. But the article portrays Yang's followers as somehow being more full of bots than others. There is no evidence for that.
mnowicki 7y ago
> Full disclosure: I like Yang. Like, 'like like'? Or just 'like'?
drewrv 7y ago
I feel like there should be a law for social media: "Sufficiently passionate fanbases are indistinguishable from bots"

shiftpgdn 7y ago

The whole time I was reading this I was thinking that she almost certainly has my account flagged as a bot. I only use Twitter for infosec and politics and lately about all I do is RT Yang (and Zach) tweets.

vjeux 7y ago
> “ For example, my bot tracker focuses on bots that post on average 70 times a day or more. While a human being can certainly post to Twitter a hundred times in a day, it’s unlikely that a real human being would post a hundred times a day every day without some kind of automation helping out.” If that sentence is correct, you’re unlikely going to get flagged by the bot.

speedplane 7y ago

> The author presents no evidence of these accounts being bots other than them being closely connected and cliquey. The sad truth is that the vast majority of bots are extremely unsophisticated, they don't even try to hide their IP address through a proxy server, and basic tools like Google Analytics can identify this. In Google Analytics, just find the "Network" section, and see how much of your traffic is from "amazon web services", and just block all of it. It may not block sophisticated scrapers, and it could potentially harm legitimate users (e.g., amazon based VPN services), but it's amazing how much "bot" traffic is identifiable. The only real bot traffic that's hard to identify are actual people with machines that have been compromised.

partiallypro 7y ago

The "everyone is a bot" thing is insanely stupid. It's not just happening with Yang, it happens with Trump, Bernie, and Tulsi (generally the others don't get accused.) Some people just can't imagine a world where so many people disagree with them that they make up reasons why it's happening. Yes bots exist, but one of the greatest tricks Russia has pulled is making people believe they are bigger and more powerful than they are.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

godelski 7y ago

> In fact a quick check on twitteraudit.com Yang: 95%; 1,061,978 Real 48,878 Fake Bernie: 69%; 7,052,953 Real 3,124,469 Fake Warren: 84%; 2,966,118 Real 560,776 Fake Buttigieg: 93%; 1,481,598 Real 102,999 Fake Biden: 84%; 3,375,998 Real 619,266 Fake Trump: 79%; 56,463,132 Real 14,292,673 Fake

gremlinsinc 7y ago
Bernie and warren have multiple official accounts. At least two I know of for each. @berniesanders: 69% | 7,052,953 Real | 3,124,469 Fake @sensanders: 74% | 6,480,666 Real | 2,171,758 Fake @senwarren: 68% | 3,668,103 Real | 1,694,620 Fake @ewarren: 84% | 2,966,118 Real | 560,776 Fake So cumulatively the scores are more like: Bernie: 71% Total non-fake followers: 8,237,392 Warren: 79% Total non-fake followers: 4,939,601 At the end of the day the percentage/ratio of real to fake doesn't matter. What matters is the REAL people following a candidate, Besides trump, Bernie beats all others. Disclaimer: My account looks like a Bernie Bot, but my followers real % is 85 which actually surprised me lol. I'd support Yang or Tulsi. Probably not anybody else running. I'm an independent, and align more with leftist/socialist libertarianism (not the GOP think-tank ran version of American libertarianism). I don't just vote for any 'blue' because they're blue. I don't do party politics.
- godelski 7y ago
  I do find it odd, though, that this piece calls out the person with the lowest bot count. Why target a specific person if your concern is bots? Why target the person with the least amount of bots? It makes the post feel disingenuous. If we trust twitter audit over her (which tbf I don't see any good reason to trust one over another) then her piece seems at best naive and at worse a hit piece. Knowing Yang Gang, and knowing that there's a lot of people turning from Trump (they literally pride themselves on it [0,1,2,3,4], I can go on pretty easily with a lot like [2]), it makes me inclined to believe that the analysis is naive (I'm hesitant to call this a hit piece) because she mentioned the suspicion of MAGA and YG. MAGA and YG connections makes a lot of sense if you just checked out the subreddit for ten minutes. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/et3v4z/42_of_yang_voters_wont_support_the_dem_nominee_if/ https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/et3v4z/... [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/et24dh/im_a_conservative_guy_donating_to_a_political/ https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/et24dh/... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/ekhp4o/im_a_trump_supporter_whos_yang_curious/ https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/ekhp4o/... [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/epq2dd/this_prolife_trumpster_actually_shutdown_his/ https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/epq2dd/... [4] https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/cn5vsl/dear_newcomers_this_is_a_different_type_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/cn5vsl/...

maire 7y ago

> The author presents no evidence of these accounts being bots other than them being closely connected and cliquey. I had the same reaction. I follow all of the candidates on twitter. Most of the campaigns are periodic quite frankly boring posts by the candidates. Yang lets his gang do most of the tweeting and he retweets their posts. In person he does the same thing. There is a lot of audience participation during his speeches. This makes his campaign more lively. The reason why I doubt they are bots is that the tweets are intelligent. About a week ago I tweeted something about Yang that was factually incorrect. Someone tweeted back within minutes and very politely corrected what I said. We had a few tweet exchanges then someone else jumped in and said that my confusion was something that they would take back to the campaign. A few days later Yang mentioned my confusion in one of his interviews. I am not exactly sure if this was a coincidence...

grumple 7y ago

> The author presents no evidence of these accounts being bots other than them being closely connected and cliquey. Multiple accounts with the same name, image, and profile, coupled with radical changes in the types of content posted, and also with superhuman (clearly automated) posting rates? What more evidence do you need?

godelski 7y ago
> What more evidence do you need? HN tends to be a more technical place. So when we have two competing narratives and analyses people become suspicious (high number or retweets, high number of likes). When one analysis basically characterizes bots similarly to how the president tweets, people get suspicious. When one analysis characterizes bots as having expected behavior of users (Yangers having connections to MAGA, which was a MAJOR part of her analysis), people become suspicious. When the author says that they only identified 3 bots from Trump's twitter account, one becomes suspicious. When you link to Mother Jones as your coup de ta and the article doesn't characterize your link's words, people become suspicious. So forgive me if I personally need more evidence.
raz32dust 7y ago
I didn't say there weren't any bots. But the article portrays Yang's followers as somehow being more full of bots than others. There is no evidence for that.

mnowicki 7y ago

> Full disclosure: I like Yang. Like, 'like like'? Or just 'like'?

drewrv 7y ago

I feel like there should be a law for social media: "Sufficiently passionate fanbases are indistinguishable from bots"