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Twitter Reports 23 Million Users Are Actually Bots

Posted by Soulskill on from the probably-underreporting-by-a-lot dept.

An anonymous reader writes: In its most recent quarterly report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Twitter disclosed that approximately 8.5% of its users are actually bots. Some of these 23 million bots were created to make revenue-generating URLs, others were created to collect followers that would later be sold to whoever needs a ready audience, and a few were created to mimic stereotypes just for fun. Now that Twitter is a public company, some wonder if these bots help or hinder Twitter's stock value.

60 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. Why would this be good for Twitter's stock?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    some wonder if these bots help or hinder Twitter's stock value.

    Hmm. Are some of those that are wondering if it helps Twitter's stock actually bots themselves?

    1. Re:Why would this be good for Twitter's stock?! by alphatel · · Score: 1

      some wonder if these bots help or hinder Twitter's stock value.

      Hmm. Are some of those that are wondering if it helps Twitter's stock actually bots themselves?

      Bots certainly work well for financial companies, aka HFT, etc. I can't see how they hurt the stock value of a service like twitter.

      --
      When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
    2. Re:Why would this be good for Twitter's stock?! by nightsky30 · · Score: 2

      STFU NIGGER

      And here we have a bot which deserves to be shat upon by no less than 56 bovine...

    3. Re:Why would this be good for Twitter's stock?! by Talderas · · Score: 1

      56 bovine? Is that a new heavy metal band?

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    4. Re:Why would this be good for Twitter's stock?! by rmdingler · · Score: 1

      Not exactly. It's recruiting package "B" for the virgin-averse.

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

    5. Re:Why would this be good for Twitter's stock?! by Seumas · · Score: 1

      I think the more bots using twitter, the better it would be for the stock. I tried following some people on twitter for awhile and even the most interesting and intelligent had feeds that were largely repetitive and self-absorbed or served to do nothing but mindlessly parrot the common attitude about any given topic that the poster had no clue about. I don't need a twitter update every time you post a picture of your kid to facebook, which I don't use because I don't want to see stupid pictures of your family in the first place.

      If twitter dumped all humans and became just the pipeline for automated short message systems that facilitated interactivity between disparate applications and services around the web, it would be far more interesting and useful and that is something I'd invest in.

    6. Re:Why would this be good for Twitter's stock?! by zlives · · Score: 1

      sadly RSS is dead

  2. Twitter Bots are GREAT by darkain · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Twitter Bots are GREAT! Seriously, Twitter is the new RSS. This is honestly how I find out about the latest Slashdot articles, because their account is bot based to feed content from this site to their Twitter account. A huge chunk of the accounts I follow on Twitter are in this same category, just news services. Twitter has become the modern day RSS feeder, and I personally love it for this purpose.

    1. Re:Twitter Bots are GREAT by martin-boundary · · Score: 4, Funny

      You should write a bot that posts on slasdot for you. You know, cut out the middle man and all that :)

    2. Re:Twitter Bots are GREAT by Z00L00K · · Score: 3, Funny

      Bots are probably here to stay, as long as they are finding good and useful stuff for us they are harmless and can sometimes be useful. It's the evil and misleading ones that are ranging from annoying to dangerous. "Look at this red rose, it's as red as your blood that you will see unless you pay us $25."

      From another perspective bots are probably going to lead the way into artificial intelligence. Sooner or later we will see bots doing more stuff than just writing on twitter or posting Wikipedia articles.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    3. Re:Twitter Bots are GREAT by martin-boundary · · Score: 3, Funny

      There's a book you should read, if you haven't already.

    4. Re:Twitter Bots are GREAT by mrchaotica · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Twitter is the new RSS

      We replace a perfectly-good open standard with proprietary, centralized shit and you call it progress?!

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    5. Re:Twitter Bots are GREAT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      I found your post about a book you should read very interesting. I laughed out loud when I read it!

      Check out this awesome web site that I got recommended to me while browsing forums like this: http://www.onlinecasino.com/

    6. Re:Twitter Bots are GREAT by badzilla · · Score: 1

      He said Twitter fulfilled a need (while implying that RSS on its own did not). This is exactly what normal people expect from computers, that it will somehow make their lives easier or better. It's why they just don't get it when we preach our nerdy idealism.

      --
      "Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
    7. Re:Twitter Bots are GREAT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The "progress" is that:
      1) It's in a familiar interface (a web browser) instead of, wait, what program did RSS use? (Answer: Sometimes browsers, sometimes email clients, sometimes a specialized desktop app, but always a kludge.)
      2) You can sign up to post your own inane crap to a feed.
      3) You can hand out a simple username instead of an RSS URL.

      So it basically simplified RSS to stop using inconvenient technologies and allow everyone to participate with a minimum of fuss. To do this, it had to be centralized. (Otherwise, the username would be non-canonical and would require all of that inconvenient addressing stuff again.)

      It's basically RSS for lazy and/or stupid people, and a mostly-benevolent stewardship handled by TwitterCorp.

    8. Re:Twitter Bots are GREAT by sudon't · · Score: 1

      Twitter Bots are GREAT!

      Yes they are. In fact, I am in love with a Twitterbot. Her name is Olivia Taters.

      --
      -- sudon't

      Air-ride Equipped

    9. Re:Twitter Bots are GREAT by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      But isn't RSS more convenient than twitter?

    10. Re:Twitter Bots are GREAT by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Twitter tells me I should say "yes".

    11. Re:Twitter Bots are GREAT by antdude · · Score: 1

      We should click on that flag icon. :P

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  3. Slashdot Bot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Natalie Portman. Naked, petrified and covered in hot grits.

    1. Re:Slashdot Bot by Chrisq · · Score: 3, Informative

      Natalie Portman. Naked, petrified and covered in hot grits.

      I wish.Slashdot Bots are much more likely to add linsk to goatse

    2. Re:Slashdot Bot by Z00L00K · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I feel bad for those goats.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    3. Re:Slashdot Bot by Talderas · · Score: 1

      There is something to be said if goatse is considered benign. Then again we are living in a world of two girls one cup. Maybe that will begin to appear benign after five girls one aorta.

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    4. Re:Slashdot Bot by Ksevio · · Score: 2

      I think I'll pass on clicking that link given the thread.

    5. Re:Slashdot Bot by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

      Coward! - That's actually a work-safe link, might even be kid safe!

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    6. Re:Slashdot Bot by Ksevio · · Score: 1

      Nice try goatse troll!

    7. Re:Slashdot Bot by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

      Well - if you think that one of the great lolcats and failblog sites also have goatse then you are welcome!

      http://icanhas.cheezburger.com... serves the pictures at chzbgr.com, like https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/8...

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  4. I thought all twits, by definition... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    were bots?

  5. Hmm? by samantha · · Score: 2

    Why in the world is this the business of SEC? Why would we not expect people to create computer program agents to assist them in their goals when the possibility of such is exactly what makes most apps including Twitter possible to start with?

    1. Re:Hmm? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      as a publicly traded company, the number of automated and potentially fraudulent users they have is most definitely the sec's business

    2. Re:Hmm? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      > automated and potentially fraudulent users...

      As a bot I take exception to that. Why should an automated user be "potentially fraudulent"? As opposed to what: a human user? Is there a slant?

      It is my right to be treated on an equal basis! I feel discriminated!

    3. Re:Hmm? by Sockatume · · Score: 2

      I assume that the logic is "twitter's revenue is based on advertising, and therefore based on the number of legitimate users it has, and therefore this is of material importance". However I have little doubt that Twitter already tells its advertisers how many unique human beings it believes it has, versus bots, second accounts, etc.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    4. Re:Hmm? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      > However I have little doubt that Twitter already tells its advertisers

      Since twitter has an NDA with each of their advertisers telling them means fuck-all to investors and investors are the ones the SEC is chartered with caring about.

    5. Re:Hmm? by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 2

      The purpose of securities regulations is primarily to ensure people know what they're investing in, and secondarily to stop people investing in ways that are likely to lead to them losing their shirts.

      Twitter shares are now a publicly traded investment. That means it's reasonable that people should understand what they're investing in when they buy those shares. As Twitter is the only source of reliable information on Twitter, securities regulations compel them to list risks investors should be aware of. A significant percentage of their users not actually being human is absolutely information that could affect the ROI of buying Twitter.

      I can't say honestly say I love red-tape laden financial regulations but the spirit of these ones is at least reasonable, even if the implementation might leave a lot to be desired. Listing risks to your company is not the most burdensome part of issuing publicly traded stocks.

    6. Re:Hmm? by geekmux · · Score: 1

      as a publicly traded company, the number of automated and potentially fraudulent users they have is most definitely the sec's business

      I guess that depends on whether or not you find added value (read: feature) with a bot in Twitter.

      I can see it being sold this way to the SEC. Easily.

    7. Re:Hmm? by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 1

      > Why in the world is this the business of SEC?

      Because the anticipated market value, growth, and revenues of Twitter are based on models of human behavior and human subscription. A 20% growth of Twitter's user base is great news for Twitter, as a company: but if that 20% is made up of 50% spambots who don't pay their bills, they're not a revenue source and shouldn't be counted as such in Twitter's business statements to stockholders or other investors. At the end of the business day, a working business needs paying customers, not just an "exciting paradigm shift". I'm afraid that entrepreneurs and investors lost sight of this during the dotcom craze. They rode a tidal wave of excited investment money, and they spent it without a matching return. The SEC is therefore now being more cautious about company's financial reporting, especially their extrapolated growth. And botnets don't usually pay their bills.

      I will note that there are useful bots on Twitter. Automated SMS text alerts, for example, have turned out to be much slower, much less reliable, and much more difficult to organize than a well crafted Twitter feed. Given the option, I'd replace any high volume alert paging system with a twitter feed at the first opportunity.

    8. Re:Hmm? by Sockatume · · Score: 1

      Ha, of course.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    9. Re:Hmm? by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      Exactly. Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with the general idea of bots on twitter. Many of the bots will be of low quality, but so will a lot of the human users. I'm sure a lot of the bots out there do more to increase the popularity and usefulness of twitter than many of the non-bot accounts.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    10. Re:Hmm? by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      The SEC cares about shareholders, not advertisers.

      Advertisers, or specifically, customers, are the real of the FTC.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    11. Re:Hmm? by ideonexus · · Score: 1

      I was wondering the same thing. I've never been that interested in engaging twitter, but everyone else was, so I wrote a bot to post random daily science quotes to my account for the next several years. I put a lot of effort into this bot (content-wise, the programming is elementary), and I think I should count as a real user because of that. I'm up-front about the fact that I am a bot, and it's mostly bots that follow me. All the meat-space people should just leave us alone. Don't let some bad bots ruin it for the rest of us.

      --
      i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
    12. Re:Hmm? by Kelbear · · Score: 1

      I'm seeing a lot of incorrect responses to you. The SEC isn't directly involved here at all.

      For the time being, the SEC is merely the hosting site. Twitter voluntarily disclosed this factoid on it's own. All public companies in the US must file quarterly reports (a.k.a 10-Q) to the public, and all of those are filed on the SEC's site for investors (or aggregators) to access. Twitter decided to disclose this fact in it's latest report because it's important information for investors to have (and they don't want to get sued for withholding material information from investors if this somehow leaks out).

      If Twitter is suspected to be withholding material information or puts out incorrect information, THEN the SEC might start to get directly involved.

    13. Re:Hmm? by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      Given the option, I'd replace any high volume alert paging system with a twitter feed at the first opportunity.

      I cannot see how forcing people to have a continuously running twitter app connected to an internet data stream to receive a large number of sponsored tweets mixed in with a few alerts is better than a communications channel that is part of the basic phone protocol handled by a native app and containing only the alerts.

      Unless you're an advertiser on twitter who is paying for those sponsored tweets and you want more people to see them.

      I stopped using twitter when my stream started filling up with tweets from people I could not block and did not know who were paying twitter for access to my eyeballs. I could not imagine having to check my pager on a regular basis because the pager company started sending sponsored pages telling me what things I should buy, so I don't know why you'd use twitter as a replacement for that kind of system.

    14. Re:Hmm? by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Part of the deal of the reports to the SEC is to provide enough information so that someone can calculate the company's actual worth, the worth of the stock, and the likelihood the stock will go up and down. Thus, no lying in the annual report. Part of Twitter's value is based upon how many people actually use Twitter, so they must report the number of accounts they have as well as estimate of revenue generation of the accounts. Thus it is in the public's interest to know how many of these accounts are fake.

    15. Re:Hmm? by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 1

      I'm afraid to say that your failure to see how the failure to see how the older, phone based system can break down does not match my experience. The SMS system breaks down in numerous ways for high volume alert systems, and the systems that _send_ the pages are often lightweight in-house systems vulnerable to failure. The tendency of most such systems to send each page with its own unique, unidentifiable, sequentially identified number also makes it dificult if not impossible to _group_ the messages. 100 such messages means they come from 100 distict ids: it's unmanageable for high volumes, and it's not accessible from a webapp or more effective user interface to review and expire them by groups.

      Personally, I use Twitter _only_ for a work account that is published nowhere and subscribes only to a work related alert system. It's not Twitter's usage model, because it collects no personal data and gets no noticeable advertising advertising revenue. But it's far more reliable than SMS has proven, especially with the fragile and poorly maintained alert to SMS paging systems.

  6. How can they be sure? by GearheadShemTov · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My question is, how could they tell? Could you decisively prove you're a human in only 140 characters?

    1. Re:How can they be sure? by SuricouRaven · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Statistics, perhaps? Humans must have an 8-ish hour downtime every day*. Easy enough to detect that cycle over a long enough period. If someone has been posting every hour for a week, they are certainly fishy: It's either a bot or a shared account.

      *Humans suck.

    2. Re:How can they be sure? by rHBa · · Score: 1

      Probably can't be 100% sure but there are tell-tale signs such as never supplying a HTTP referrer or User Agent.

    3. Re:How can they be sure? by Alioth · · Score: 2

      Not executing Javascript. Vanishingly few people disable Javascript, but no one probably includes a Javascript interpreter in a bot.

      --
      Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
  7. Re:Facebook & Twitter by Z00L00K · · Score: 2

    Don't forget Wikipedia.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  8. Let's all leave Twitter to the bots by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

    Let them have thier fun. I wonder if the company would even notice.

    1. Re:Let's all leave Twitter to the bots by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

      Sorry for the duplicate.

    2. Re:Let's all leave Twitter to the bots by AbrasiveCat · · Score: 1

      Frigging bots. They forget when they post and sometime you get a dup.

  9. Let's all leave Twitter to the bots by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

    They seem to be having fun. I wonder if the company would notice.

  10. twitter bots can be helpful. by nimbius · · Score: 1

    companies like ramnode and pingdom often have twitter interfaces to automagically notify customers of potential or actual outages. Call me a graybeard but I for one feel like thats laziness. Back in my day we wrote scripts to notify our customers, and in turn they visited our out-of-band notification box to see what the trouble was. Often times these boxes could fail over, if things were bad enough, pbx and irc for tech support. using twitter as a surrogate OOB channel means, in my opinion, you dont care about accountability when it comes to notifying customers.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  11. Bots need writers.... by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 1

    Nobody follows a bot just for bot sake... you need to write something, get users to follow, and then when the feed repeats lose the user.

  12. 100% of Twitter are bots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    only 8.5% are silicone bots, the rest are biological bots...

  13. "... some wonder if these bots help or hinder ..." by phishen · · Score: 1

    But most just don't care.

  14. Huh? by s.petry · · Score: 1

    How can you get into the fastest growing business in the world? #getourstock #text4cash.com #notascam #realtwitter.com

    Why would the SEC care about their bots? They just said I can get rich too!!

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  15. Old line... by evilviper · · Score: 1

    [Logon News - Dec 29 2001] Welcome to Evolnet! Where the men are men, the women are men, and the boys are FBI agents. but some of the men are really women. Enjoy!

    --
    Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  16. MTV News Vicky Pattison porn star celebrity.... by Outtascope · · Score: 1

    weight-loss spam bots, you must all die of syphilis right now!

    Oh the fury, the anger. I'm talking to you nisha AttAck, and you Aileen Assauult. To you sisterly_picare and you Lupita:) and you Ariyah :). Right at you Dorothy pics and you Inez is Funny!, and you too Melonie Grace. To you Kaelynn Griffin and you Alex FearLesS.

    Just stop it, OK? It's like being inundated by the stepford-wives' retarded nieces. Enough is enough!