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I can believe under 5% of all active accounts on Twitter are spam bots. However, I would bet money that they account for a significantly higher percentage of u
by etempleton 4y ago
I can believe under 5% of all active accounts on Twitter are spam bots.
However, I would bet money that they account for a significantly higher percentage of user interactions, particularly ad interactions, and most notably link clicks.
If you run an ad on Twitter it will generate an unnatural amount of web traffic without much in terms of actual interactions on your website. No other digital ad I have run behaves in quite this way, which leads me to believe it is almost all bot activity and accidental link clicks.
- cyanydeez 4y agoEh, more likely, pure botting is less than 5%. What's a greater amount is mechanical Turks operating hundreds of accounts using enhanced identity management and vpns to astroturf comments. It's been documented multiple times in connection with Russia and their Internet research agency. I remember further back in 2008 the CIA themselves had a RFP out for "identity management software", so it's been decades since governments recognized the value of astroturf and making social media accounts at volume to persuade public opinion. I'd love for this argument be put before the court threading the need between bots and mechanical Turks