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Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

bbc.com

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Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#41

Post by startupdiscuss »

jashkenas wrote: post #28

I would imagine that it's possible that some of the people reading these comments might already know a lot more detail about Twitter/Facebook bots than this story goes into. Although you fine folks might remember me from a few other projects, I'm currently a Graphics Editor at The New York Times. We're actively curious and interested in pursuing lines of inquiry about this sort of behavior, and if any HN'ers have any…

If you want another angle on the story, consider non-bot bots. (aka "sock puppets")

You have an argument with someone on twitter and the next second 4 or 5 newly formed eggs with 1 follower apiece pile in to defend the other POV, sometimes without regard to civility.

It could be a coincidence.

Or it could be that the person you were debating let their ID out in another way.

Edit: Just to be clear, I was talking about the Freudian "Id" in all caps, used these days as a short-hand for a sort of unfiltered emotional inner child, and not "I.D." which is short for identification.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#42

Post by stordoff »

jimnotgym wrote: post #32

I found it interesting that a Member of parliament on twitter had hundreds of obvious bot followers. I presumed he was buying 'popularity'. Maybe more sinister. Lots of them very recent

Hundreds out of how many? I get a fair number of bot followers on an account I don't really care about.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#43

Post by noir_lord »

ashark wrote: post #40
OliverJones wrote: post #20

Huh. The landline telephone business has, for a long time now, been compromised by spammers and bots (telemarketing calls and robocalls). I canceled my land line about four years ago after going for three months without receiving a single call I wanted. It seems the commercial social networks are headed for the same fate. And, they're headed for hardnosed and unpleasant regulation by governments. They probably need t…

My cell phone's the same way now. Maybe one in ten calls, at best, isn't phone-spam. And that's with being on the Do Not Call list. I've been trying to figure out a way to do without an actual phone (except maybe a burner on the off chance I need to call 911) as a result. Text is by far the more valuable side of my phone plan, but mostly because everyone wants to use it for auth these days (I could switch to another…

I have important numbers set to come through, everyone else just rings out silently (and I disabled voicemail), either you are a contact and I'll ring back or I just delete the call notification.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#44

Post by jashkenas »

startupdiscuss wrote: post #41
jashkenas wrote: post #28

I would imagine that it's possible that some of the people reading these comments might already know a lot more detail about Twitter/Facebook bots than this story goes into. Although you fine folks might remember me from a few other projects, I'm currently a Graphics Editor at The New York Times. We're actively curious and interested in pursuing lines of inquiry about this sort of behavior, and if any HN'ers have any…

If you want another angle on the story, consider non-bot bots. (aka "sock puppets") You have an argument with someone on twitter and the next second 4 or 5 newly formed eggs with 1 follower apiece pile in to defend the other POV, sometimes without regard to civility. It could be a coincidence. Or it could be that the person you were debating let their ID out in another way. Edit: Just to be clear, I was talking about…

There are certainly a great many interesting angles ;)

For a neat paper that actually has some nice hard evidence about what government production of social posts can look like, check out Gary King and co. at Harvard's exploration of Zhanggong, China:

http://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/50c.pdf

We summarized it here: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/20/business/international/ch...

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#45

Post by problems »

jashkenas wrote: post #28

I would imagine that it's possible that some of the people reading these comments might already know a lot more detail about Twitter/Facebook bots than this story goes into. Although you fine folks might remember me from a few other projects, I'm currently a Graphics Editor at The New York Times. We're actively curious and interested in pursuing lines of inquiry about this sort of behavior, and if any HN'ers have any…

Anyone with $10 can go buy tens of thousands of followers. And they work. And stay for a fair while. I've done this a few times myself, it really doesn't take any more than a quick google search.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#46

Post by frozenport »

jashkenas wrote: post #28

I would imagine that it's possible that some of the people reading these comments might already know a lot more detail about Twitter/Facebook bots than this story goes into. Although you fine folks might remember me from a few other projects, I'm currently a Graphics Editor at The New York Times. We're actively curious and interested in pursuing lines of inquiry about this sort of behavior, and if any HN'ers have any…

I would like to see more reporting on the poltical forces on Wikipedia.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#47

Post by astrodust »

tristanj wrote: post #10

In their recent SEC filings, Twitter estimates around 5% of the MAUs are spammers or bots. They also estimate they have 317 million MAUs, which when you work it out gives around 16.7 million monthly spammers or bots. Numbers come from their 2016 Q3 filing https://investor.twitterinc.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=15645...

I think that's an optimistically low estimate.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#49

Post by puranjay »

OliverJones wrote: post #20

Huh. The landline telephone business has, for a long time now, been compromised by spammers and bots (telemarketing calls and robocalls). I canceled my land line about four years ago after going for three months without receiving a single call I wanted. It seems the commercial social networks are headed for the same fate. And, they're headed for hardnosed and unpleasant regulation by governments. They probably need t…

Twitter is extremely forgiving with its account creation. An internet marketing buddy showed me how he could make 20+ accounts on the same IP address without Twitter throwing the ban hammer.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#50

Post by dxhdr »

Twitter says 5% of their MAUs are bots but this surely an underestimate. Facebook estimates nearly 9% fake users which is also likely too conservative. Bot traffic in ad fraud is even higher (30+%? every study is different, seems difficult to measure).

So we have 5-9% as a lower bound and perhaps we can look at e-mail for an upper bound with nearly 60% spam by volume.

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