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If I were to build a bot I wouldn’t even touch the API. Why not simulate everything through a headless browser and stay under the radar. Then build a farm of th

If I were to build a bot I wouldn’t even touch the API. Why not simulate everything through a headless browser and stay under the radar. Then build a farm of those simulations and you can publish/promote everything you desire pretty much undetectable.

tasuki 4y ago
> If I were to build a bot I wouldn’t even touch the API. If you were to build a malicious bot, sure. If you were to build a bot to tweet about the weather in Sheffield, you might as well use the API.
- redox99 4y ago
  Yeah but the bots that people complain about are the malicious bots that try to pass as humans.
  - dotnet00 4y ago
    Those become a lot easier to work with when you differentiate them from good-faith bots. Discord does something similar, although I feel they've gone way too far with policing it.
  - takeda 4y ago
    The idea was about opening the API, and this suggestion was to argument that it makes easier for the malicious bots. So this was suggested to make the API less valuable for that purpose. I think the only problem would be if this API was used by non-bots (perhaps some relays) and the tag loses its meaning.
  - ohmyzee 4y ago
    I think we need to expand our vocabulary a little on this subject. A lot of people seem to think that these "bots" are just limited to "buy crypto today" type posters. What they don't realise is that the comment they are reading right now could well have been written by a bot.
    - largepeepee 4y ago
      His scope covers everything you mentioned, you are the only one limiting it yourself.
- pooper 4y ago
  > If you were to build a bot to tweet about the weather in Sheffield, you might as well use the API. I don't think twitter is that place and it hasn't been for a while if it ever was. I just watched this video again... https://youtu.be/ddO9idmax0o https://youtu.be/ddO9idmax0o To me, the draw of twitter was you could text messages (SMS) to 40404 or get texts from 40404 from people I choose to follow. I had unlimited minutes and unlimited texts but I didn't have an app phone back in 2008 when I signed up for Twitter. The world has changed since then... I'd say if you were to build a bot to tweet about the weather in Sheffield, you are probably better off setting up your own server to write blog posts or something like that? Maybe look into microdata or RSS or something too?
  - kevinmchugh 4y ago
    It's very common to build bots for Twitter. They post on Twitter because there's an audience there. I'm sure there's lots of places I could get an rss weather subscription, but I stopped using rss. This is a Twitter account that started relatively recently - I like it. https://twitter.com/_restaurant_bot https://twitter.com/_restaurant_bot This sort of bot has had a good place on Twitter for at least a decade, going back to @everyword.
- elorant 4y ago
  I’m not on Twitter, but I can think a myriad of cases where I wouldn’t want to touch the API without my case being malicious. Like extracting data from the platform, or monitor specific accounts, or monitor trends, or whatever. It doesn’t have to necessarily be a troll farm, or a fake users service. I’m sure the API allows most, if not all of these, but there would be usage quota. You bypass it, and then you can even start a business around it. There are thousands of startups out there providing services for social media monitoring, and I seriously doubt all of them are going through the official API.

tasuki 4y ago

> If I were to build a bot I wouldn’t even touch the API. If you were to build a malicious bot, sure. If you were to build a bot to tweet about the weather in Sheffield, you might as well use the API.

redox99 4y ago
Yeah but the bots that people complain about are the malicious bots that try to pass as humans.
- dotnet00 4y ago
  Those become a lot easier to work with when you differentiate them from good-faith bots. Discord does something similar, although I feel they've gone way too far with policing it.
- takeda 4y ago
  The idea was about opening the API, and this suggestion was to argument that it makes easier for the malicious bots. So this was suggested to make the API less valuable for that purpose. I think the only problem would be if this API was used by non-bots (perhaps some relays) and the tag loses its meaning.
- ohmyzee 4y ago
  I think we need to expand our vocabulary a little on this subject. A lot of people seem to think that these "bots" are just limited to "buy crypto today" type posters. What they don't realise is that the comment they are reading right now could well have been written by a bot.
  - largepeepee 4y ago
    His scope covers everything you mentioned, you are the only one limiting it yourself.
pooper 4y ago
> If you were to build a bot to tweet about the weather in Sheffield, you might as well use the API. I don't think twitter is that place and it hasn't been for a while if it ever was. I just watched this video again... https://youtu.be/ddO9idmax0o https://youtu.be/ddO9idmax0o To me, the draw of twitter was you could text messages (SMS) to 40404 or get texts from 40404 from people I choose to follow. I had unlimited minutes and unlimited texts but I didn't have an app phone back in 2008 when I signed up for Twitter. The world has changed since then... I'd say if you were to build a bot to tweet about the weather in Sheffield, you are probably better off setting up your own server to write blog posts or something like that? Maybe look into microdata or RSS or something too?
- kevinmchugh 4y ago
  It's very common to build bots for Twitter. They post on Twitter because there's an audience there. I'm sure there's lots of places I could get an rss weather subscription, but I stopped using rss. This is a Twitter account that started relatively recently - I like it. https://twitter.com/_restaurant_bot https://twitter.com/_restaurant_bot This sort of bot has had a good place on Twitter for at least a decade, going back to @everyword.
elorant 4y ago
I’m not on Twitter, but I can think a myriad of cases where I wouldn’t want to touch the API without my case being malicious. Like extracting data from the platform, or monitor specific accounts, or monitor trends, or whatever. It doesn’t have to necessarily be a troll farm, or a fake users service. I’m sure the API allows most, if not all of these, but there would be usage quota. You bypass it, and then you can even start a business around it. There are thousands of startups out there providing services for social media monitoring, and I seriously doubt all of them are going through the official API.