Twitter’s new ‘Chief-Twit’ Elon Musk was recently heard complaining that Twitter was overrun with bot accounts, fake accounts, spam accounts, and all manner of chicanery.
But is it really?
This article will examine the current state of Twitter’s bots — what they are, what they do, and which are good and bad.
Then, we’ll look at what you can do about them if you find them hiding among your Twitter followers.
So, if you’re ready to begin, let’s dive into the nuts and bolts of Twitter bots!
What is a Twitter bot anyway?
Twitter bots are automated programs running on the platform. They can access the Twitter API and use various Twitter apps to perform tasks across the entire social network.
There are several different types of Twitter bots, ranging from simple automation tools for scheduling tweets or automatically replying to mentions to bots of a more complex nature.
These more advanced bots interact with you in real-time, performing tasks like sentiment and hashtag analysis, data mining, and advanced scheduling and helping you grow your account organically.
Whether a bot’s actions are beneficial or malicious will depend entirely on its coding and purpose.
A good bot – is one that helps you pay attention to the accounts you want to follow while assisting you in managing your posts.
A bad bot – spreads misinformation, scams, and other undesirable content—exceeds Twitter’s rate limits, and violates the platform’s rules.
Benefits of Twitter bots
Using Twitter bots can offer a broad spectrum of benefits. From saving time and effort on routine tasks to automating the publishing of hundreds of tweets.
Bots can also help you identify new tweets from the people you follow and provide you with many additional functions via various Twitter apps.
But, there are some significant negatives.
Because Twitter bots are routinely used for commercial and political spamming, they can be configured to spread viral misinformation and shape public opinion.
Spamming, hacking, disseminating malicious propaganda, and attempting to manipulate the Twitter algorithm contradict the idea of Twitter as an open public forum. None of which stops people from programming them to do this.
The more bad bots imitate humans, the more difficult it becomes to distinguish a real person from a fake or manipulated one.
Everyone except the scammer loses.
How Many Bots Are on Twitter?
Elon Musk’s recent statement that up to 33% of Twitter accounts were bots caused considerable controversy. It was heavily disputed by the mainstream press, who pushed back by claiming the number was more likely between 5-15%.
Twitter’s former CEO, Parag Agrawal, stated just months ago that Twitter suspended up to 500,000 accounts daily for suspected spam.
All of this indicates that Twitter is a social media platform with a wide range of inauthentic accounts—one where you cannot be guaranteed that the account following you is being operated by a human user.
In November 2022, Elon Musk set up a Twitter poll asking users if Donald Trump should be allowed back on the platform. 51.8% of respondents voted yes. As a result, Trump’s Twitter account was reinstated.
Some Twitter user’s later speculated that Musk’s sole reason for setting up the poll was to create an elaborate ‘honey-trap’ to identify accounts using bot code to influence the poll results.
It’s impossible to know if this was true. Detecting bot accounts can be challenging (even for Twitter). Knowing exactly how many bots are active on the platform is difficult.
The number of fake accounts may be higher than many outside estimates allow but perhaps lower than the figure claimed by Mr. Musk!
What are the bot accounts doing?
As we have previously said, the activities a bot engages in are determined by the purpose it was created for. There are many legitimate and useful purposes for bots on Twitter.
Good bots
A good bot will automate tasks—scheduling your tweets, tracking mentions, retweets, and likes, providing suggestions for accounts to follow, and keeping tabs on your Twitter activity.
Bots can supply you with breaking news, and many sites specialize in curating tweets from various sources and delivering them directly to your feed.
Some bots can be used for entertainment, such as answering trivia or playing simple games.
Bots have many positive uses on Twitter, and their capabilities are constantly evolving.
Here are a few examples:
- Tracking and updating earthquake activity.
- Finding links to free ebooks.
- Accessing a virtual assistant.
- Exploring random museums.
- Downloading videos and Gifs.
- Asking a deep question.
Bad bots
One of the most common nefarious uses of bots on Twitter lies in the spreading of false or malicious information.
These types of bots can originate from either private or state-sponsored sources. They’re often designed to amplify tweets, promote rumors, and run scams.
They can influence hashtags and public opinion and get topics trending. They generally sow discord among different groups in online environments.
Many of these types of attacks are coordinated by botnets.
What is a Botnet?
A botnet is a network of infected computers controlled by a hacker. It is used to launch attacks, inject malware and viruses, steal identities and perhaps crash the system. An automated bot network controls these individual computers.
In recent years, botnets have been used to sell products by mass spamming and perpetuate scams by cyber-criminals. They have also been implicated in attempts to spread viral misinformation, influence political opinion, and alter the outcome of elections.
Summary
It’s important to remember that not all bots are bad. Twitter actively encourages bot developers to create bots and gives them access to the Twitter API to do so.
The problems arise when a bot developer utilizes the development environment to write malicious bot code.
Like any computer program, the behavior of a bot for good or ill will depend on who coded it.
Now that you know what bots are and what they’re capable of let’s look at what you can do about them.
What can you do about Twitter bots?
The first thing you need to be able to do is to spot the bots following you. Fortunately, there are several characteristics to look out for:
The Content and profile will look automated.
Profiles that appear fake or computer generated are relatively easy to spot, as are accounts that follow hundreds or thousands of users but have small corresponding followings.
Generally, they’ll be followed by other bot accounts, and their real-time tweet content is likely to show little to no engagement.
Their timeline will show next to nothing in the way of an original tweet. Like tweets from people they know, their profile photos may be generic or taken from a site that produces AI-generated faces.
A bot detection tool like TwitterAudit and Botometer can help flag fake, initiative, and bot followers.
If the account is following you, simply block it to prevent it from following you.
If you feel it’s worthy of further concern, you can report it by going to its profile page, clicking the three dots in a circle below its profile picture, and selecting the report link from the bottom of the drop-down menu.
Conclusion
Even Twitter sometimes struggles to identify a real person from a Twitter bot in online environments where millions of tweets are posted in real-time.
Distinguishing a real inactive person with poor profile details and one original tweet from a bot account that appears to be an active human user is often difficult. So, don’t be too hard on yourself if you fail to spot one!
Bots and Botnets have become an increasing problem for social media users. Active across a broad spectrum of Twitter, they represent both a hindrance and a help to your Twitter experience.
But as they say, awareness is half the cure! Now that you know what bots are, you should be able to stay one step ahead.
Remember to run regular checks on your account and use the free tools linked in this article.
Thanks for reading!