How is a distributed advertisement campaign different from bots on Twitter? Should we ban automated mail as well? >This is someone trying to buy an election an

How is a distributed advertisement campaign different from bots on Twitter? Should we ban automated mail as well? >This is someone trying to buy an election and circumvent democracy The only differences between Bloomberg's behavior and that of a typical candidate are that Bloomberg is a late comer and he isn't beholden to donor interests - that doesn't mean he can't represent the people (not saying he can either). If anything this is dangerous on the part of Twitter because now it's approaching publisher territory where it chooses which bots are allowable and which campaign bots are not. Twitter deciding the outcome of an election is far less democratic than a bunch of people possibly being swayed to vote for a candidate because of advertising. You can't apply different standards to a campaign you don't like - that's partisan and undemocratic. Buying ads is not.