4 ms·

I love to mock Elon but even I am inclined to agree with him. It seems like the only other solution is something like Google's Web Environment Integrity thing,

I love to mock Elon but even I am inclined to agree with him. It seems like the only other solution is something like Google's Web Environment Integrity thing, which scares me. The best/easiest solution is to make it more expensive for the botters to play the game,

e2le 3y ago
Attestation of personhood would be another possible solution. Might even be more effective given the cost of each new key ($10+). https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-cryptographic-attestation-of-personhood/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-cryptographic-attest...
- hcurtiss 3y ago
  I'd way rather pay a dollar.
bccdee 3y ago
Nah. Twitter never had this much of a bot problem before Elon bought it, which is a big clue as to what's actually gone wrong: He laid off all the moderators and all the staff who were training the automated bot detection algorithms. Extremely formulaic spam which would have been instantly flagged a couple years ago just piles up in my notifications.
- ElongatedMusket 3y ago
  It absolutely had a bot problem before! What Twitter were you using?
  - pixxel 3y ago
    Dismiss comments that start with ‘Nah.’
    - carlosjobim 3y ago
      I've never seen a good quality comment starting with "Nah.", where did it come from and why did it become viral?
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    > never had this much of a bot problem ... How did you read this as meaning it never had a bot problem? They're claiming that it had _less_ of a bot problem, which certainly _feels_ true.
    - carlosjobim 3y ago
      Does the difference matter, when the place was completely infested already before?
      - bccdee 3y ago
        It was never a problem for me before and it's a problem for me now. That difference matters immensely to my experience of the platform.
- raincole 3y ago
  > Twitter never had this much of a bot problem before Elon bought it Nah.
  - bccdee 3y ago
    > Extremely formulaic spam which would have been instantly flagged a couple years ago just piles up in my notifications. Yah.
spondylosaurus 3y ago
There are for sure other bot management strategies out there (Web Environment Integrity is strictly hypothetical for now, iirc) but the problem is that those strategies cost money, and often quite a bit. Which, I guess "pay $1 to sign up" is _also_ a strategy that costs money, but that cost gets passed to users :P Honestly though, $1 almost seems too low to be effective in that regard, at least relative to the specific risk/reward of Twitter. For a small forum or something, sure... but if you were interested in running automated Twitter accounts, and you knew for sure that you wouldn't get caught, $100/year to run 100 accounts is absolutely worth it so long as those accounts bring in some kind of money via whatever scam/spam/promotion crap you're running.

e2le 3y ago

Attestation of personhood would be another possible solution. Might even be more effective given the cost of each new key ($10+). https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-cryptographic-attestation-of-personhood/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-cryptographic-attest...

hcurtiss 3y ago
I'd way rather pay a dollar.

bccdee 3y ago

Nah. Twitter never had this much of a bot problem before Elon bought it, which is a big clue as to what's actually gone wrong: He laid off all the moderators and all the staff who were training the automated bot detection algorithms. Extremely formulaic spam which would have been instantly flagged a couple years ago just piles up in my notifications.

ElongatedMusket 3y ago
It absolutely had a bot problem before! What Twitter were you using?
- pixxel 3y ago
  Dismiss comments that start with ‘Nah.’
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    I've never seen a good quality comment starting with "Nah.", where did it come from and why did it become viral?
- rsynnott 3y ago
  > never had this much of a bot problem ... How did you read this as meaning it never had a bot problem? They're claiming that it had _less_ of a bot problem, which certainly _feels_ true.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    Does the difference matter, when the place was completely infested already before?
    - bccdee 3y ago
      It was never a problem for me before and it's a problem for me now. That difference matters immensely to my experience of the platform.
raincole 3y ago
> Twitter never had this much of a bot problem before Elon bought it Nah.
- bccdee 3y ago
  > Extremely formulaic spam which would have been instantly flagged a couple years ago just piles up in my notifications. Yah.

spondylosaurus 3y ago

There are for sure other bot management strategies out there (Web Environment Integrity is strictly hypothetical for now, iirc) but the problem is that those strategies cost money, and often quite a bit. Which, I guess "pay $1 to sign up" is _also_ a strategy that costs money, but that cost gets passed to users :P Honestly though, $1 almost seems too low to be effective in that regard, at least relative to the specific risk/reward of Twitter. For a small forum or something, sure... but if you were interested in running automated Twitter accounts, and you knew for sure that you wouldn't get caught, $100/year to run 100 accounts is absolutely worth it so long as those accounts bring in some kind of money via whatever scam/spam/promotion crap you're running.