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>45 bot-like accounts on X collectively produced around 440,000 posts, garnering over 3 billion impressions. In the 2.5 weeks following the election, their roug
by Barrin92 2y ago
>45 bot-like accounts on X collectively produced around 440,000 posts, garnering over 3 billion impressions. In the 2.5 weeks following the election, their roughly 170,000 posts racked up over 1.3 billion impressions.
How do these accounts not get caught by the most rudimentary filters, this isn't even remotely subtle.
- taeric 2y agoThis is the part that somewhat blows my mind. Feels like they turned the volume up to 11 in the hopes that nobody can hear over the noise. You would think it was going on some very sophisticated effort. But so much of it is so cookie cutter that it is mind boggling it is as bad as it is.
- woodruffw 2y agoThey are caught by the filters; it's just that the filters don't filter anymore. Twitter needs to demonstrate volume to retain the few advertisers it has left, and allowing for fake content amplification is a cheap way to demonstrate volume (until all of the advertisers catch on).
- hn1986 2y agoBingo, at this point, any social media company welcomes engagement, even if inauthentic.
- anigbrowl 2y agoBecause Musk tolerates spammers. He put most of the API behind a $5000/month paywall, but still allows up to 1500 automated posts a month for free. All trending hashtags are quickly overrun by spammers. I've reported one account for spam close to 100 times (not an ad - a fake account that just endlessly retweets t-shirt vendors in any political discussion). Nothing happens.
- ethagknight 2y agoUnless the authors give the list of the "45 bot-like accounts" then we have to assume this is a straw man, no?