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Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

theintercept.com

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Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#161

Post by gideonparanoid »

cicero wrote: post #83
aaachilless wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it for some reason not a viable solution to just stop following people who shitpost? Or does Twitter push random users' posts at you? I ask because I've been circling around Twitter for a month or so, but if you can't isolate yourself from public tweets, I'm definitely not going to jump in.

It is certainly viable. I follow an interesting group of users and unfollow anyone who becomes problematic. There are some "Promoted" tweets that are essentially ads, but they are easy to ignore if not interesting.

I've found that with blocking every account I see a promoted tweet from, I barely see any any more.

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#162

Post by ianai »

jpindar wrote: post #118
ianai wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a great reason to block them. Can we just shut down twitter already? It seems like something made for marketing purposes that was pushed on people and wound up harmful. (Granted, that’s not practical.)

Why can't you just not use Twitter, and leave it to those of us who like it?

Because we tried that to disasterous results.

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#163

Post by krylon »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #57
sandov wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Our citizens are too stupid to have a personal opinion and distinguish between a bot and a real person"

The alternative solution (don't let people that stupid vote) is too impalpable for society right now. Even if just 10% of people are that dumb, 10% is more than enough to swing an election.

The basic idea underlying democracy is not that people are intelligent enough to make the right choices, but that they have the right to choose their government regardless of their intelligence. Even if that means you end up with people like George W. Bush junior or Donald Trump in the White House.

I am still somewhat shocked that Donald Trump is really President of the USA[1], but I am deeply convinced that denying arbitrary people their right to vote is an acceptable "solution".

[1] Really, it sounds like satire, doesn't it?

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#164

Post by heavenlyhash »

downandout wrote: post #25

The profile of fake porn accounts the guy in the first part of the story developed is that they "liked more tweets than they retweeted, had fewer than 1,000 followers, and directed readers to click the link in their bios." If that is the only criteria he's using, many legitimate accounts will be falsely accused.

We have so many better systems with tons of literature. We -- us, the humans in bulk, as a species with brains -- have so, so many things figured out for this.

Googling for "random walk" and "sybil attack" will dump so many solid research papers in our laps it's just a tragedy nobody can be arsed to do something useful.

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#165

Post by ataturk »

bigiain wrote: post #52
lorenzhs wrote: post #38

I got fed up with Twitter's lack of enthusiasm in blocking these accounts so I whipped up a quick proof of concept a while ago. The amount of trivial-to-detect cryptocurrency scams in replies to popular accounts was so high that I put together a hacky PoC: https://gist.github.com/lorenzhs/864353c202112a38de17ed054f3... -- the scammers' messages have changed now, the messages no longer match that particular filter, bu…

I got fed up with Twitter's lack of enthusiasm in blocking all sorts of shitposts that I stopped using it. I've been significantly less angry ever since...

Twitter is and always has been bullshit. It's just that human being can't help themselves. It's crack!

That said, I think it is a dangerous assertion to arrive at saying that everything you don't agree with is a "Russian bot" or some other kind of bot, I don't know. The whole Russian bot things makes utterly no sense and seems more like a way for Twitter et al to be able to silence opposing viewpoints more than anything else. For example, after the Florida incident, where the Tweets that were assumed to be bots more pro-gun or in favor of broad prohibitions on a civil right?

Also, the neo-left or whatever they are in the US are now world famous for accusing their opponents of the very things they are doing. Using a bot? Blame the conservatives for using bots. Selling secrets to America's enemies? Blame the conservatives for selling secrets to America's enemies. You get the idea. I really don't think their strategy is going to work long-term, but Americans are pretty stupid.

My great hope is that Twitter and Facebook one day both go out of business.

It's the eBay effect where a new service has value early in its life but as soon as millions adopt it, the value is ruined.

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#166

Post by rahoulb »

sandov wrote: post #50
twblalock wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly that's true, on Twitter as well as on Facebook, and it's pretty well documented at this point.

Then why not tackle the root problem?: Lack of critical thinking skills. I'm not from the US, so I don't know how extensive their philosophy courses are in school, but judging by these repetitive "Russians/bots are manipulating our people" headlines, it's probably lacking.

The root problem is that people use these tools as a brief diversion, not something to engage their critical faculties.

If there was a "long-read social media" platform, it would be ignored, because you wouldn't check it in the bus queue or on the toilet.

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#167

Post by Angostura »

zeth___ wrote: post #75
bigiain wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got fed up with Twitter's lack of enthusiasm in blocking all sorts of shitposts that I stopped using it. I've been significantly less angry ever since...

Honest question: what's the point of twitter?

It can have many uses. It's very handy as a customer support/news mechanism

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#168

Post by bond »

aphextron wrote: post #74

This whole problem could be solved by opening account verification up to everyone. Twitter would be amazing if every profile were guaranteed to be a verified human being with government issued ID. Leave it open to those who want to stay anonymous, but give users the option to filter those people out.

Maybe something like Selfkey would be useful...

https://selfkey.org/

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#170

Post by jordan801 »

Isn't this self defeating? As everyone has pointed out, it's not hard to detect a bot. So, why can't Twitter just do it? Maybe their review and moderation team is just too backed up. In that case, instead of helping the twitter team, these detection bots, are probably making it worse. Reviews and considerations have to be more thorough, since most of the reports are from automated systems. Systems, they probably have already engineered.

I built a chrome plugin that filtered out Facebook posts by a set of keywords. It took less than an hour. Maybe these "hackers" should do it for Twitter. It would reduce the load on the moderators, while making these bots far less effective. Then, reach out to the Twitter team, and see if there's a way to go about this, that isn't destructive.

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