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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

#121

Post by iamatworknow »

andai wrote: post #108
iamatworknow wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You need to scroll down at least 5 load-more's to see regular people tweets. I personally don't find much added value in those tweets, "regular people" or not. They're basically YouTube comment level at this point.

And it was at this moment andai that realised, that YouTube comments are written by regular people.

"YouTube comments = garbage" is basically a meme now but I certainly find most general usage public internet comments, especially relating to politics, to be largely unreadable. That may come off as sounding elitist, but low effort opinion spamming is really not my cup of tea.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#122

Post by pjc50 »

golergka wrote: post #103
baby wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I already have most of work-related messaging on Facebook, and it's awesome indeed. Can't wait to drop Skype completely.

You have your work messaging on your personal Facebook? What happens if you change jobs or your relatives start fights with customers?

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#123

Post by zeroer »

Balgair wrote: post #86
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…

Semi-related aside, but fun: Every April Fool's Day I love to mess with family members. A (hypothetically) good effort:effect ratio I have found is Craigslist: Go into some large city's section (NYC, Austin, Sf, etc) and put up a listing for a 'free xbone' or a 'free PSS1', or something similarly typo'd. Explain that you are giving your kids' Xbone away because of a failing grade, you are moving overseas, your boyfri…

I understand it's all good-natured fun for you, but I'm glad I'm not in your family. You're making the world a worse place and wasting strangers' time.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#124

Post by andai »

debt wrote: post #16

This is a great way to spread fake news and get people to see it/engage with it.

Don't know why you were downvoted, as this is one of the most important uses of bots.

Maybe people are sick of hearing the term.

There also seems to be some confusion about its meaning and its purpose.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#125

Post by econner »

nostrademons wrote: post #70

No kidding. I remember when I first moved to the Bay Area in 2009, I met a smart guy at a startup meetup, a serial entrepreneur with a previous exit. I asked him what he was working on, and he said "Oh, I've been writing a Twitter bot that will follow people of your choosing, engage them in simple conversation, and retweet their tweets. It's building a network of followers - I don't know yet what I'd do with that, bu…

I'd believe it. For what it's worth, something like 80% - 90% of all email is spam. It's usually better to leave it there and cordon it off so that real users don't notice it. Spammers don't get feedback that their spam isn't being shown to real users.

Also 350,000 accounts is hardly "massive" as the clickbait title suggests. No way that can account for more than a small percentage of traffic.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#127

Post by mtkd »

in '08 or '09 I met a guy who was creating 100s or more accounts and paying an overseas outsourcing company to curate longterm timelines properly (so not just spam)

he genuinely didn't know why he was doing it at the time (he'd been heavily involved in gaming Google rankings previously for credit card companies) and it was at significant cost - but he was completely sure at some point it would be useful

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#128

Post by andai »

rch wrote: post #31

Spam was a serious and growing problem before the major providers got serious about filtering. For now I just report clickbait feeds as spam and hope for the best.

I thought, "ha, he'd need a botnet to make any noticeable impact", when I thought, has anyone thought of that?

Using a network of bots to detect and report obvious bot accounts.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#129

Post by tmaly »

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.

I would much rather get an amplified retweet than get followers for the money.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#130

Post by leephillips »

_pecl wrote: post #72
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 personally have thousands of Twitter accounts I control just for fun; I mostly use them for pranks, though in aggregate there are a few million followers between them (not sure how many duplicates there are, or, ironically, how many of their followers are bots). You can even buy software to create and manage Twitter accounts pretty easily in blackhat forums. For mine, I scraped a bunch of Instagram pictures for pho…

IP meaning internet protocol number? What about students on a campus network, where there may be hundreds coming from the same IP? And you are managing hundreds of different IPs for your Twitter accounts? How does that work?
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