DU Etiquette - Please Do Not Post Like A Bot On Purpose Regarding the NRA
I understand that an increasing amount of social media posts are by spam bots, but is it causing real people to post like bots themselves. Taking a look at a lot of the gun control and NRA threads, you see a lot of one line heading and one sentence posts, as well as seeing some of the most highly rec'd threads being ones attacking Democrats.
We have heard that bots have become increasingly more sophisticated in being able to post a few lines of gibberish, but are people themselves learning to post like bots?
I remember when DU used to have a lot of actual dialogue where folks seemed to actually discuss things. Now, threads sometimes look like wannabe bots with one line non-sequiturs being exchanged, particularly when it comes to gun control and the NRA.
https://mashable.com/2017/11/02/botcheck-california-students-twitter-fake-accounts-bots/#aMM0hkE8sOqI
Their work has shown them how bots have evolved in the past year or so. At first, Bhat said a lot of these accounts just tweeted images, but they've grown into accounts that tweet "articles" with text generated by the headline of whatever they're linking to, so Twitter users won't be tipped off by bot-mangled language.
They've also seen how real accounts can transform into bots. A lot of us probably follow the account of someone we know who never used Twitter that much, and eventually stopped altogether. Those accounts sometimes get hacked and sold to someone who then turns them into a bot account, meaning Twitter users can follow bots without ever having meant to.
The pair have also found some weird shit: One time, scrolling through a conversation between two probable bots, they saw one account imply it had bought a car on Monday and then decided to buy a different one on Tuesday.
"If you go far back enough, the conversations that they're having between themselves you'll notice are just gibberish," Bhat said.
