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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

#51

Post by dhimes »

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…

In the US isn't there a law expressly prohibiting these calls to cell phones?

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#52

Post by DanBC »

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…

That's a really unsophisticated sockpuppet.

For something more detailed I guess "Can we talk about nowheremom yet" is a good start: https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/can-we-talk-about-nowhe...

http://web.archive.org/web/20010624115154/http%3A//forums.an...

Or the "DaveonWheels" hoax: http://observer.com/2012/10/meet-hunter-dunn-the-young-man-w... http://dave-on-wheels-exposed.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/dave-on...

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#53

Post by andai »

problems wrote: post #45
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.

Would you mind sharing why you did it? I've been curious about this for a while.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#54

Post by pjc50 »

doctorshady wrote: post #30
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…

I get your analogy, but the great thing about landlines is you can selectively forward unwanted callers to anything you feel like. Social media websites don't tend to have anything like that.

I've never encountered this feature myself.

While social media at least has "block" and "report". And the collaborative API-driven blocklists used against organised troll attacks.

Even USENET has a better killfile than my landline.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#55

Post by aresant »

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…

Could NYT quantify - through experimentation - the value of a bot army as the "story"?

For instance a Tweet with 100 retweets is substantially more likely to generate additional retweets / be shown more by Twitter's algorithm / etc vs. a tweet with 10 retweets. And scale that up!

Easy to build an experiment and quantify even on a small level for NYT.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#56

Post by camus2 »

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…

> My cell phone's the same way now.

Mine as well. I even get fake vocal messages on my voicemail, starting with a first name I might or might not know asking me to call back like it's an emergency and obviously the number is a premium-rate one. I was like wow, that's a whole new level of spamming. I can't imagine the future of spamming : data mining personnal infos on social media + customized fake messages just to make you call back a number.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#57

Post by baby »

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…

> social networks are headed for the same fate

On the contrary, Facebook is the last halo of peace for me. I only talk to my friends, never get unwarranted messages, spam, mail subscriptions, renewals, ads, scary calls/emails, ... you name it. Now if I could email via Facebook, that would be awesome.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#58

Post by ohnotthatguy »

Anyone on twitter could've told you that. When you're followed by "@hotttladie3" & "hotttladie453892", it's only reasonable to assume there is also an @hotttladie4 through @hotttladie452891.

The problem with having a user reporting based plan for acting against fake accounts in an environment where the psychological motivations of using the service, if not to disseminate news, or maintain a closet standup comedian habit, is affirmation. In almost every motivation for using the service, the user has an incentive to keep their numbers up, whether they are real or not. A huge part of the game is the number of followers.

Personally I'm just surprised that they've moved from advertising cam sites (which could conceivably act as a secondary, almost passive income) to quoting star wars novels while inflating numbers for people who pay for followers. That's the aspect that confuses me, and makes me feel vulnerable.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#59

Post by maxerickson »

dhimes wrote: post #51
ashark wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In the US isn't there a law expressly prohibiting these calls to cell phones?

Yes. But scammers don't care.

It does actually work to ask to be put on the do not call list maintained by the caller (not the national registry), even for scammers. Nobody wants to waste resources.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#60

Post by sergiotapia »

Twitter has become unbearable to use for news. Every single submission from news stations to President Trump is filled with combo-replies from people. 1 dude will bombard the tweet, then a chick, then a different guy.

Example: http://i.imgur.com/zbyM7YG.png

You need to scroll down at least 5 load-more's to see regular people tweets. It's a really terrible user experience that Twitter needs to solve.

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