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You say that the problem is overblown but then go on to talk about the dangerous effects the problem has on discourse. Not only are the bots spewing out propaga
by Polylactic_acid 7y ago
You say that the problem is overblown but then go on to talk about the dangerous effects the problem has on discourse. Not only are the bots spewing out propaganda, but as you say they destroy the trust we have in each other which further builds the mindset of "Anything I believe in is true and anything else must be bots". In my mind this makes the bot problem very bad.
The problem is made even worse when you have non bot accounts that spam out low effort bad faith posts like "If climate change is real then explain x". It takes 2 seconds to post that but 10 minutes to properly reply. And when you look in to the post history of these accounts you can see they have been given the same answer repeatedly but ignore it because their objective is not to have a discussion or to learn, their objective is to waste peoples time and create doubt.
- Kaiyou 7y agoSomeone just has to put 10 minutes in, the rest is copy paste.
- yummypaint 7y agoThen a casual observer will see two sides apparently debating an issue, and infer a false equivalency. The media is especially guilty of assuming that people who disagree with equal passion must be equally correct. I dont think anyone would claim that bots are improving the quality of discourse.
- Kaiyou 7y agoI don't think it's at all possible to have something resembling a discourse on Twitter.
- marknutter 7y agoOr maybe they've never gotten what they feel to be an acceptable or compelling answer.
- Polylactic_acid 7y agoThere never will be an acceptable or compelling answer to these people though. They refuse to accept new information or anything that is different to the talking point they have latched on to. Its especially true for bad news, we all want climate change to be a hoax, its much more convenient to believe this than to accept reality.