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'Armies' of Twitter Bots Bolster Both The Trump And Clinton Campaigns (technewsworld.com)
An anonymous reader writes:
During the first U.S. presidential debate, "automated accounts were tweeting messages with hashtags associated with the candidates. For example, #makeamericagreatagain or #draintheswamp for Trump; #imwithher for Clinton," according to TechNewsWorld. They cite researchers at PoliticalBots.org, who "found that one-third of all tweets using pro-Trump hashtags were created by bots and one-fifth of all Clinton hashtags were generated by automated accounts."
In addition, "Political actors and governments worldwide have begun using bots to manipulate public opinion, choke off debate, and muddy political issues... We know for a fact that Russia, as a state, has sponsored the use of bots for attacking transnational targets... We've had cases in Mexico, Turkey, South Korea and Australia. The problem is that a lot of people don't know bots exist, and that trends on social media or even online polls can be gamed by bots very easily."
After the second presidential debate, "Pro-Clinton bots 'fought back'," reported the BBC, adding that they were still outnumbered by the Trump bots.
In addition, "Political actors and governments worldwide have begun using bots to manipulate public opinion, choke off debate, and muddy political issues... We know for a fact that Russia, as a state, has sponsored the use of bots for attacking transnational targets... We've had cases in Mexico, Turkey, South Korea and Australia. The problem is that a lot of people don't know bots exist, and that trends on social media or even online polls can be gamed by bots very easily."
After the second presidential debate, "Pro-Clinton bots 'fought back'," reported the BBC, adding that they were still outnumbered by the Trump bots.
That's OK, Twitter fights back against the Trump bots by blocking hashtags from trending. When the FBI reopened the investigation into Hillary's emails, several pro-Trump hashtags (naturally) started trending ... briefly. Then Twitter caught on and suppressed them from appearing in the Trending list.
The same does not apply to pro-Hillary hashtags, of course. Despite the fact that Trump hashtags frequently get many times more tweets than Hillary's hashtags (and if you assume those 33%/20% bot percentages are true and adjust for that, still more legitimate tweets), they're frequently blocked from trending.
And Twitter wonders why no one wants to purchase them.
Twitter is a cesspool of corporate and political propaganda, self-righteous indignation, and minor celebrities trying to make a name for themselves. Why does anybody listen to the crap these people post?
Very few people use Twitter.
Really? Because this administration is waging a proxy war with Russia in Syria, and Hillary wants to create a no fly zone (which would put us at war with them), and she's the one telling everyone that the nukes launch 4 minutes after Hillary gives the order. The whole reason the satirical #DraftOurDaughters campaign (currently NSFW) was going on Twitter has merely served to highlight the fact that she's been very willing to go to war. I mean, it wasn't that long ago when Hillary was talking about how we would go to war with Iran.
Feel free to argue, though: those are mostly videos of Hillary talking. Of course, if you want to say that you don't believe the things she says, I'll be forced to agree with you.
How can anyone with half a brain take seriously a communication system that limits people to 140 character posts? Does 141 characters overload primitive logic circuits?
if Twitter and Facebook were extensions of the United States Government. Last I checked they were privately corporations. I suppose the argument could be made that it's bad for their shareholders to take sides, but the opposite could be made too. There's plenty of arguments to be had that a Trump presidency would be a disaster of trade wars and depressions if he implemented the policies he keeps saying he will. I'm not going to debate that topic right now, but I'm saying it's out there.
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Twitter is a cesspool of corporate and political propaganda, self-righteous indignation, and minor celebrities trying to make a name for themselves. Why does anybody listen to the crap these people post?
Admirably brief. Doth the lady (or gentleman) protest too much? Looks like a Twitter-trained response to me.
Returning to your Comment Subject:
Re:why does anybody care?
My response is "Concision". Yes, Twitter is a cesspool on its best days, and much worse the rest of the time, but the quest for brevity brings a clarity to the mimes. There are a few gems there. Don't bet on finding any, mostly due to the TwitterBots of this selfsame story.
As usual, I try to see things in terms of solutions, and one solution that could add significant value to Twitter would be TwitterBot filtering. Search results should reduce the visibility of the accounts that behave like TwitterBots. Of course that's a tough call, but one option might be a way to report a Tweet as appearing to come from a TwitterBot. The obvious problem is that you need to prevent the TwitterBots from reporting non-robotic accounts... (I don't want to recurse infinitely, but my first thought is that you discount reports until AFTER the account has established a reputation as being a human being, using information that is not easily visible to TwitterBot herders.)
In spite of my verbosity I confess to significant experience with Twitter. I think the most recent gem of a meme might be the realization that the so-called Republican Party has given up on winning presidential elections by fair means. They will do literally ANYTHING to win. In 2000 that involved dragging the Supreme Court into the political battle, and this year it's the FBI. In Twitter form:
Only way to win the White House is by partisan cheating!
Using SCOTUS in 2000 and FBI this time!
And the solution, a la Twitter:
Hey, Putie! Before you send me my new nonpartisan FBI director, can your goons handle these #BadMimes on Twitter?
True memes, you say?
As usual, disappointed by the lack of insight on Slashdot and even more disappointed by the lack of "funny" on this target-rich topic. Again, considering solutions, I think the editors need to reduce the flow of stories to match the reduced readership and Slashdot needs a better financial model to fix everything else.
(Are you still listening, whipslash? Or did you conclude that Slashdot isn't worth your valuable time?)
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
What about stealthier hashtags like #StrongerToGetHer?
Clinton's got a lot more money than Trump. She ought to be able to match him here. Conscious Decision maybe? I just don't know why.
I looked at the article and they never explain how they determine whether a twitter account is a bot. An awful lot of Trump supporters on twitter are anonymous because the left loves to dox people with the wrong opinions and harass them or try to get them fired, etc. Are these really bots, or just anonymous twitter users?
If they're bots, are they paid for by the campaigns? Where's the FEC filings for the Trump bot payments? We know Clinton's spending millions with Correct the Record for her fake online support. Either Trump isn't paying for fake online support, or he's violating campaign finance laws by not properly reporting it.
Possibilities:
1. These aren't actually bots, and the article is fake. Leftists always accuse their opponent of doing whatever they're doing. So once Correct the Record became known, suddenly some story pops up and makes the rounds in the media that Putin's got troll accounts making pro-Trump statements. Of course, the interviewed "researcher" provides absolutely no evidence of this. Not a screenshot, not a single account name, no numbers, absolutely nothing. This looks the same kind of thing. The authors need to show their work.
2. These are bots and Trump is faking his FEC filings for some reason. That's a big story! Some journalist should get on that by tracing the origin of the bots to find out what company's paying for them, and how they're getting paid on the sly by Trump.
3. The Trump "bots" are actually 4chan users who spam twitter to disseminate their propaganda. Real people, real support, just anonymous.
4. The bots actually are from Putin, so they're not Trump's bots, they're Trump-supporting Putin bots. But again, we'd need to see some evidence of this.
My guess is #1. I see this technique too often in the media. Accuse the opponent of doing whatever it is you're doing, state "facts" without proof to create fear, uncertainty and doubt and generally discredit the opposition. "Oh, Trump doesn't really have online support, it's fake bots," distracting from the actual, provable, and disturbing fake online support for Clinton from Correct the Record.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
No, you put your income on your tax returns. Are you saying that someone with $0 gross income is "rich"? They are losing money, not making it. And Trump is a loser.
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