
Americans lose confidence they can sniff out social media bots - dnetesn
https://techxplore.com/news/2018-10-americans-confidence-social-media-bots.html
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rhn_mk1
I'm having trouble understanding the terms being used by the article. First
off - bots. Generally I understood them as automatic agents doing something a
person otherwise would do themselves. This doesn't seem to be the definition
in use here:

> why would a small percentage, though small, find anything positive about the
> bots, about being lied to

Under the "bots = automation" definition, this is similar to saying "why would
anyone find anything positive about computer programs".

Instead, this article is saying:

bots = lies

Does the article actually talk about astroturfing trolls leveraging
automation? The automation part doesn't seem to be relevant, as paid trolls
are the problem.

In the end, I understand that the article has a problem with lying on the
internet, but what does "bot" mean to the society at large these days?

~~~
colordrops
This is similar to the futile struggle to get people to stop calling
"crackers" "hackers". "Bot" has now come to encompass "bot", "troll", "sock
puppet", and "shill".

~~~
CM30
Or for that matter, the struggle to get people to stop calling bullies,
harassers, bots and sockpuppets 'trolls'. Troll used to mean 'someone who who
said/did things for the sole purpose of annoying people'. Not 'annoying
person/bot online I don't like'

But as with hacker, these terms have basically lost all meaning now.

~~~
gaius
_these terms have basically lost all meaning now_

Hell, someone the other day passed me their phone and asked me to take a
“selfie” of them...

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prolikewh0a
Wouldn't this be an end goal for malicious bots? I also think this article
puts too much emphasis on people "being lied to" by __all __social media bots
with statements like: "One question begs for closer analysis; why would a
small percentage, though small, find anything positive about the bots, about
being lied to, that the information is not free of salary packet or automated
word strings?", when that's absolutely not true for all bots.

For example, a National Weather Service severe weather social media bot just
posting severe weather warnings probably isn't lying to you.

~~~
colechristensen
An NWS Twitter bot (although I would actually expect it to be a human posting)
isn't telling the truth because of the content of its tweets but because it
accurately represents itself.

If a Twitter bot named FSB Social Media Account #5527 posted commentary about
American politics, there would be very few problems regardless of content.

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asaph
The article talks about people's _perception_ of whether or not they can
distinguish between bots and humans on social media. A more interesting
question is whether this perception is correct. Are bots actually getting
better at fooling humans or is there simply more cynicism about social media
bots? We can't tell from this article.

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mc32
It’s weird that people have an issue with bots when the bigger issue is
astroturfing. But no one wants to get rid of astroturfing bacause that’s every
brand’s bread and butter.

~~~
darpa_escapee
Bots allow cheaper astroturfing, they go hand-in-hand.

~~~
mc32
Tangential, but curious as how one would classify the various national
astroturfing propaganda offices (think China, N Korea, India, Russia, etc.)
Since they are human operated, they're not bots but actually fit the
astroturfing definition but I often see them confused or conflated with
"bots".

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TangoTrotFox
In my opinion this is due to people increasingly reappropriating the term
'bot' much in the way 'troll' has been. Troll originally had a clear meaning.
It was people posting things _exclusively_ to obtain incensed reaction. Now
somehow 'troll' has increasingly been applied to anybody stating something
somebody else strongly disagrees with.

And now the same thing is slowly happening to bot. It's not only people
'trolling', but it's being done by 'bots'. I believe this is largely a product
of the increasing antagonism and radicalism in different 'sects' of our
country today. By referring to people you disagree with as 'bots' and 'trolls'
it works exactly like wartime propaganda - it dehumanizes and delegitimizes
the 'enemy'.

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wincy
I’ve noticed the conservatives? Alt-right? People on T_D on Reddit? Have
started calling liberals “NPCs” (non player characters in video gaming terms).
On both sides it’s a worrying trend of dehumanizing the other. A trend of
cutting economic ties (boycotts, getting people fired) is also worrying,
because you don’t go to war with people you trade with. Cutting economic ties
is a sign of impending conflict.

~~~
sievebrain
Countries do go to war with countries they trade with. People were saying
record high levels of trade would prevent war ... in Europe, right before
world war 1

~~~
Nasrudith
To be fair they were totally right that going to war would be a terrible idea
but they did it anyway - given that World War 1 pretty much killed off the
ruling aristocracy, lead to countless suffering, and stagnation. If they were
smart it would have prevented the war but as Bismark predicted it all blew up
over a fool thing in the Balkans.

It is like MAD - the assumptions are based upon rational actors which is why
they are terrified of proliferation beyond just others getting in their
clubhouse.

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lumberjack
Why are they calling them "bots"? Is it because they themselves censored the
usage of the term "shill", when they were themselves the ones shilling?

~~~
gaius
They call them NPCs now

~~~
dragontamer
That'd make sense actually.

Unfortunately, the term "NPC" seems to be just a childish insult more often
than not. I guess the word "shill" is typically an insult and rarely ever used
to actually attack an actual bot or paid-marketer (even though that's the
implication).

Troll is the most accurate word I think. I think people are generally happy
when a paid employee interacts with the audience (technically a "shill" but...
in the case of MMORPGs and such, people like feeling that the game-masters are
listening to them).

I'm personally going to stick with the word "troll". I don't really care if
they're paid or not, or foreign or not. If they're hampering the discussion,
they're a troll. If they're helping the discussion, then they are welcome. So
"Troll" is the best distinction, and the main one that matters.

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amelius
Does it actually matter if it is a bot rather than a person with malicious
intent?

~~~
sjbase
Does it matter if a robot can build a car? People can build cars.

Of course it matters. A bot can scale to appear as millions of people. So
whoever wields the most compelling bots gets a massive force-multiplier for
their opinions and objectives. Or more likely, grants that power to the
highest bidder.

~~~
amelius
> A bot can scale to appear as millions of people.

Meanwhile, labor in Asia is quite cheap ...

Also, they might use bots for the "easy" people, and real human workers for
more alert people.

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mjfern
How about a browser extension or app that highlights suspected bots as you're
using Twitter or other social media? How difficult is this problem to solve?

~~~
craftyguy
It would be really easy for the developers to highlight their political
adversaries as 'bots', and people would be none the wiser since they forfeited
their ability to perform critical thinking to have a 'bot' do it for them.

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tomohawk
Isn't the point of social media to turn people into bots? Sounds like mission
accomplished.

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IlCano
I have a plan - instead of combatting the bots make their influence smaller by
limiting the access to them. Hike up the mobile internet prices would be a
good start.

