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Signs you're following a fake Twitter account

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Re: Signs you're following a fake Twitter account

#101

Post by chance_state »

bronipstid wrote: post #94
chance_state wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>most of it wasn't some coordinated attack from St. Petersburg This is completely false. A cursory search will yield results explaining Russia's massive effort on social media (and Twitter in particular) to interfere in the election. https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2018/2016-elec... https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2017/Update-Ru... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/19/twitter…

That article says 50,000 accounts were "linked to Russia". Do you know who linked them to Russia and by what criteria? They weren't actually controlled by the Russian government because the article cites that figure at only 3,000. The hysteria over Russia as an excuse to ignore the concerns of Americans who support populist positions is pretty transparent at this point.

>The hysteria over Russia as an excuse to ignore the concerns of Americans who support populist positions is pretty transparent at this point.

You're calling it "hysteria" to dismiss facts you don't like. "The Russian Hoax!", where have I heard that before?

But, to your second point, I completely agree that many on the left want to pretend it was _mostly_ because of foreign interference. I tend to think that had a pretty small impact, and the fact you pointed out is probably much more consequential: Americans are more receptive to a populist message than people think.

Re: Signs you're following a fake Twitter account

#102

Post by chance_state »

pacala wrote: post #100
chance_state wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>most of it wasn't some coordinated attack from St. Petersburg This is completely false. A cursory search will yield results explaining Russia's massive effort on social media (and Twitter in particular) to interfere in the election. https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2018/2016-elec... https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2017/Update-Ru... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/19/twitter…

Not sure if "completely false" is appropriate. There was some Russian activity. The scale of which appears somewhat underwhelming: > Through our supplemental analysis, we have identified 13,512 additional accounts, for a total of 50,258 automated accounts that we identified as Russian-linked and Tweeting election-related content during the election period, representing approximately two one-hundredths of a percent (0…

>Through our supplemental analysis, we have identified 13,512 additional accounts, for a total of 50,258 automated accounts that we identified as Russian-linked and Tweeting election-related content during the election period, representing approximately two one-hundredths of a percent (0.016%) of the total accounts on Twitter at the time.

The comparison of "50,258 automated accounts that we identified as Russian-linked and Tweeting election-related content" to "the total accounts on Twitter at the time" makes no sense at all. It seems intended to mislead.

It would be more informative to know how many total accounts tweeted about the election, or how many politically active twitter accounts that bot army reached.

And in general, the election was decided by ~80,000 people [1]. To think that ~50,000 bots spamming Twitter with non-stop propaganda had no impact on that is extremely naive (especially when you consider that Twitter was just one piece in the overall interference).

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/do...

Re: Signs you're following a fake Twitter account

#104

Post by xaxsacsdaffbnk »

anigbrowl wrote: post #84
xaxsacsdaffbnk wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such as??? Please point to the evidence, I am genuinely interested.

It's a big topic and I am reluctant to invest a great deal of time trying to persuade a new arrival. Try following the links in this article for an overview of recent research. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-twitter-bots-...

Right in the first article it says "they are still unraveling whether large numbers of computer-generated tweets can really sway policies or elections—and how such influence might be countered."

They don't really have any evidence.

I know it was a big subject, mainly driven by the left to somehow rationalize why Hillary lost. It's just a narrative.

Re: Signs you're following a fake Twitter account

#105

Post by fwip »

jimkleiber wrote: post #83
petargyurov wrote: post #9

The biggest sign mentioned in the article is the insane number of tweets since the inception of the account - surely this must set off some alerts on Twitter's backend? I know that this is an extremely difficult problem to solve and that they probably ban accounts in waves but with something as obvious as this you'd think that the ban could/should come more swiftly...

I think it could be a relatively easy problem to solve: give any user the option to verify their identity. In this way, as verified accounts increase, the unverified accounts become more obvious and I imagine we will start to view them with more scrutiny. It would allow anonymity to remain, just make it so those accounts are more obviously anonymous or pseudonymous.

What do you think the marginal cost of verification is, and how many users will Twitter have to verify in order to make this work?

Re: Signs you're following a fake Twitter account

#106

Post by catalogia »

non-entity wrote: post #4

Easiest way I've found to spot bots on Twitter is username patterns where both the handle and display name are similar or the same with 1 or 2 words (often a first and last name) and a random number. For example JohnDoe127474 . For a more realistic example: I just went to the first trending semi-poltical topic and this was the first bottish account I found (the tweet itself is pretty benign): https://twitter.com/Elsi…

Most of the "normal" people I know IRL have usernames like that.

Re: Signs you're following a fake Twitter account

#107

Post by brokensegue »

jimkleiber wrote: post #83
petargyurov wrote: post #9

The biggest sign mentioned in the article is the insane number of tweets since the inception of the account - surely this must set off some alerts on Twitter's backend? I know that this is an extremely difficult problem to solve and that they probably ban accounts in waves but with something as obvious as this you'd think that the ban could/should come more swiftly...

I think it could be a relatively easy problem to solve: give any user the option to verify their identity. In this way, as verified accounts increase, the unverified accounts become more obvious and I imagine we will start to view them with more scrutiny. It would allow anonymity to remain, just make it so those accounts are more obviously anonymous or pseudonymous.

Verify how

Re: Signs you're following a fake Twitter account

#109

Post by pacala »

chance_state wrote: post #102
pacala wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if "completely false" is appropriate. There was some Russian activity. The scale of which appears somewhat underwhelming: > Through our supplemental analysis, we have identified 13,512 additional accounts, for a total of 50,258 automated accounts that we identified as Russian-linked and Tweeting election-related content during the election period, representing approximately two one-hundredths of a percent (0…

>Through our supplemental analysis, we have identified 13,512 additional accounts, for a total of 50,258 automated accounts that we identified as Russian-linked and Tweeting election-related content during the election period, representing approximately two one-hundredths of a percent (0.016%) of the total accounts on Twitter at the time. The comparison of "50,258 automated accounts that we identified as Russian-link…

Using a very rough ballpark estimate, it costs $1 / month to run a twitter bot using readily available technology, see, for example, https://jarvee.com/get-now pricing list. To think that for $50k / month anyone in the world can have a [significant?] impact on US elections is bizarre.

In practice, there is a negligible probability that posting a tweet from a random bot will end up in the feeds for a target demographic. The feed space of the 80k people WP claims decide the election is finite, and it costs significantly more money to reach them than setting up small scale botnets. Ultimately, Twitter is in control of the feeds, and it's their business model to happily direct any message from the highest bidder to the critical demographic, regardless of who or where the highest bidder is.

Re: Signs you're following a fake Twitter account

#110

Post by floatingatoll »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #92
anigbrowl wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a big topic and I am reluctant to invest a great deal of time trying to persuade a new arrival. Try following the links in this article for an overview of recent research. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-twitter-bots-...

New account, seemingly randomly generated username, only ever posts in defense of botting. Seems like we need a "Signs you're arguing with a fake hnews account" article.

http://wondermark.com/1k62/ seems apropos.
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