4 ms·

Most politicians are boring. So what? Just don’t follow them. The problem with bots is not that they are “artificial sounding”. They can and are used for scami

Most politicians are boring. So what? Just don’t follow them. The problem with bots is not that they are “artificial sounding”. They can and are used for scaming people, they can and are used for manipulating the public discourse.

strangattractor 4y ago
The problems with bots is they jack up advertisers cost and don't buy things and cannot be influenced. Follow the money.
- threeseed 4y ago
  There are bots on every platform and advertisers are well aware of them. They simply factor them in as a cost of doing business.
- petesergeant 4y ago
  some will also increase engagement though
mmcwilliams 4y ago
I think the problem is less that many official accounts are "boring" and more that they are run by staff and don't have the feel of direct communication that makes Twitter interesting to begin with.
nradov 4y ago
Politician social media accounts are mostly run be teams of staffers who are literally paid to manipulate the public discourse. They are no different from bots.
- weisk 4y ago
  We've arrived to a very satisfying conclusion here: politics has always (mostly) been the biggest of all scams. Wether its a team of script writing artists, or the state of the art machine generated content, its the same worthless junk.
  - abudabi123 4y ago
    You can grade the junk by halflife.
- simonh 4y ago
  The purpose of a BOT tag isn’t to indicate quality or intent, it’s not even necessarily derogatory. Real people can be asinine and bots can be useful and informative. It’s to indicate the source was a bot. That’s still useful information.
  - ashwagary 4y ago
    A BOT tag is a great idea. They should also add the option for authors to disable BOT replies in their threads. Best of both worlds.
    - hackerfromthefu 4y ago
      Excellent idea, with BOT replies disabled by default please. Mostly people don't want BOT posts.
  - nradov 4y ago
    Useful how? What am I supposed to do with that information? Is it actionable?
genghisjahn 4y ago
Like a politician?
- abudabi123 4y ago
  Everything is politics. Without political skills humans wouldn't have landed on the Moon, but it took the shock of a headshot and the legacy of that memory which eventually faded to just about nothing in ten years.
rayiner 4y ago
Man, this “manipulating the public discourse” boogeyman has really taken root in people’s brains. The CIA mind control research paid off after all.
- rl3 4y ago
  Is it not fact that the manipulation of public discourse using bots on social media has taken place at scale?[0][1][2] When U.S. Presidential elections can be significantly swayed by information warfare campaigns run by malign actors, I can't help but feel that dismissals in such a context are rather aloof, if not out of touch. [0] https://intelligence.house.gov/social-media-content/ https://intelligence.house.gov/social-media-content/ [1] https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ICA-declass-16MAR21.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ICA-dec... [2] https://www.propublica.org/article/infamous-russian-troll-farm-appears-to-be-source-of-anti-ukraine-propaganda https://www.propublica.org/article/infamous-russian-troll-fa...
  - JamesBarney 4y ago
    There's a difference between tried to manipulate and manipulated. We don't know what effect they had. I suspect a miniscule one.
    - throwaway54_56 4y ago
      If their efforts yielded minimal results, somebody else must have had success. Online discord seems to have been sown somehow.
      - rayiner 4y ago
        Online discord is being sown because there is real world discord. It’s not coming out of thin air. The college educated upper middle class is increasingly pulling away economically from the middle class, and is being increasingly assertive about their value system which is increasingly diverging from the traditional values held by most of the rest of the country. Institutions are breaking down in different parts of the country in different ways—both red America and blue America are less likely to attend church than before, but what they do instead is creating greater gaps between them. Immigration and globalization are bringing an increased pace of change, and the New York Times is calling anyone who objects to that change bigots and racists.

strangattractor 4y ago

The problems with bots is they jack up advertisers cost and don't buy things and cannot be influenced. Follow the money.

threeseed 4y ago
There are bots on every platform and advertisers are well aware of them. They simply factor them in as a cost of doing business.
petesergeant 4y ago
some will also increase engagement though

mmcwilliams 4y ago

I think the problem is less that many official accounts are "boring" and more that they are run by staff and don't have the feel of direct communication that makes Twitter interesting to begin with.

nradov 4y ago

Politician social media accounts are mostly run be teams of staffers who are literally paid to manipulate the public discourse. They are no different from bots.

weisk 4y ago
We've arrived to a very satisfying conclusion here: politics has always (mostly) been the biggest of all scams. Wether its a team of script writing artists, or the state of the art machine generated content, its the same worthless junk.
- abudabi123 4y ago
  You can grade the junk by halflife.
simonh 4y ago
The purpose of a BOT tag isn’t to indicate quality or intent, it’s not even necessarily derogatory. Real people can be asinine and bots can be useful and informative. It’s to indicate the source was a bot. That’s still useful information.
- ashwagary 4y ago
  A BOT tag is a great idea. They should also add the option for authors to disable BOT replies in their threads. Best of both worlds.
  - hackerfromthefu 4y ago
    Excellent idea, with BOT replies disabled by default please. Mostly people don't want BOT posts.
- nradov 4y ago
  Useful how? What am I supposed to do with that information? Is it actionable?

genghisjahn 4y ago

Like a politician?

abudabi123 4y ago
Everything is politics. Without political skills humans wouldn't have landed on the Moon, but it took the shock of a headshot and the legacy of that memory which eventually faded to just about nothing in ten years.

rayiner 4y ago

Man, this “manipulating the public discourse” boogeyman has really taken root in people’s brains. The CIA mind control research paid off after all.

rl3 4y ago
Is it not fact that the manipulation of public discourse using bots on social media has taken place at scale?[0][1][2] When U.S. Presidential elections can be significantly swayed by information warfare campaigns run by malign actors, I can't help but feel that dismissals in such a context are rather aloof, if not out of touch. [0] https://intelligence.house.gov/social-media-content/ https://intelligence.house.gov/social-media-content/ [1] https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ICA-declass-16MAR21.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ICA-dec... [2] https://www.propublica.org/article/infamous-russian-troll-farm-appears-to-be-source-of-anti-ukraine-propaganda https://www.propublica.org/article/infamous-russian-troll-fa...
- JamesBarney 4y ago
  There's a difference between tried to manipulate and manipulated. We don't know what effect they had. I suspect a miniscule one.
  - throwaway54_56 4y ago
    If their efforts yielded minimal results, somebody else must have had success. Online discord seems to have been sown somehow.
    - rayiner 4y ago
      Online discord is being sown because there is real world discord. It’s not coming out of thin air. The college educated upper middle class is increasingly pulling away economically from the middle class, and is being increasingly assertive about their value system which is increasingly diverging from the traditional values held by most of the rest of the country. Institutions are breaking down in different parts of the country in different ways—both red America and blue America are less likely to attend church than before, but what they do instead is creating greater gaps between them. Immigration and globalization are bringing an increased pace of change, and the New York Times is calling anyone who objects to that change bigots and racists.