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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

#211

Post by inimino »

KirinDave wrote: post #141

I'm just amazed at this entire series of threads. "Gosh, who knew violating social network ToS by proxy and creating massive false consensus networks was so easy?" Everyone. Everyone should know. We're watching this terrible trend rip apart the entire social proposition of the internet after spending 2 decades trying and finally achieving buy in. And here y'all are, hopefulls for a digital economy cheerfully defraudi…

I can't parse your third paragraph. Who do you think is responsible for this? I say it is Twitter.

Any public service must plan for its ToS to be broken by bad actors.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#212

Post by inimino »

LightskinKanye wrote: post #190
KirinDave wrote: post #141

I'm just amazed at this entire series of threads. "Gosh, who knew violating social network ToS by proxy and creating massive false consensus networks was so easy?" Everyone. Everyone should know. We're watching this terrible trend rip apart the entire social proposition of the internet after spending 2 decades trying and finally achieving buy in. And here y'all are, hopefulls for a digital economy cheerfully defraudi…

The Tragedy of the Commons states that I am free to exploit this flaw. But we as a society should probably do something about it

No, idiot, the tragedy of the commons is a tragedy, not an ethical license.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#213

Post by jonknee »

andai wrote: post #77
puranjay wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is there a special way to do it, or do you just.. do it? My undestanding is that you are allowed 10 accounts.

And yet social media managers are a real business so they obviously don't care if you sign into hundreds or even thousands (even if it's API access, that would work for spam too).

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#214

Post by rmetzler »

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 want to mention Reddit bots who copy user content to make karma and gain influence on Reddit. There is one kind that mostly copies images with karma in the 1.000s and repost them with the same title a year or two later.

To appear more legit these bots also copy user comments and post them to /r/askreddit in threads that are similar named but most often not exactly the same as the original post. I suspect that often this /r/askreddit thread is also created by another bot from the same farm.

I'm not sure what the owners do with these bots, but I suspect you could downvote views you don't like or upvote videos to the frontpage and make lots of views and money from that.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#215

Post by jonknee »

CharlesW wrote: post #146
pavanky wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why ?

It's not possible to be completely sure that 5% isn't a reality-based estimate, but it's typical for services like Twitter Audit and BotOrNot to identify half or more of a celebrity's followers as bots. For example, as I type this BotOrNot estimates that 34% of @RealDonaldTrump followers, and 48% of @BarackObama followers, are real. Just from being a nobody on Twitter who uses it almost every day, I'd also agree that…

They are estimating active users, so it's a little hard to compare to follower accounts. A spam account from 4 years ago that followed 1,000 people and stopped would show up in 1,000 different places despite not being an active user.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#216

Post by tritosomal »

KirinDave wrote: post #141

I'm just amazed at this entire series of threads. "Gosh, who knew violating social network ToS by proxy and creating massive false consensus networks was so easy?" Everyone. Everyone should know. We're watching this terrible trend rip apart the entire social proposition of the internet after spending 2 decades trying and finally achieving buy in. And here y'all are, hopefulls for a digital economy cheerfully defraudi…

What stuns me is that we all know these junk accounts are easy to make, purely by how easy it is to make our own accounts.

We know they cost nothing to us, and so, any time we find a website and approach it as a total stranger and create a cheap account quickly, we know other strangers are capable of the same.

So, clearly no substantial population is buying into fake news.

Those that do, are likely also paying hundreds of dollars on craigslist for viagra, using escrow accounts.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#217

Post by [deleted] »

KirinDave wrote: post #141

I'm just amazed at this entire series of threads. "Gosh, who knew violating social network ToS by proxy and creating massive false consensus networks was so easy?" Everyone. Everyone should know. We're watching this terrible trend rip apart the entire social proposition of the internet after spending 2 decades trying and finally achieving buy in. And here y'all are, hopefulls for a digital economy cheerfully defraudi…

[deleted]

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#218

Post by LordHumungous »

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…

Just google "buy twitter followers"

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#219

Post by noobermin »

nl wrote: post #201
d0mine wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try to remember the last time you heard anything positive about Russia. Consider how it is compatible with the existence of Putin's troll army. At the very least try to imagine the relative scale of money/power involved in the propaganda in the West compared to the rest of the world. (for reference, check military spendings)

Do you frequent political spheres on Twitter or FB? Positive Russian comments are extremely visible on both.

On every story that touches Russia and/or Putin. It's kind of unsettling at times.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#220

Post by noobermin »

chinathrow wrote: post #186
tomc1985 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unbelievable -- "Hacker News" my ass HN needs more of this type of comments, not less

Not sure, are you being sarcastic?

Going to be honest, I am bothered about people who use such bots to sway public opinion, troll or otherwise do harm to others. But, this is literally "Hacker News" and what he is describing is a hack, and his post is going into specific detail about how he achieved that hack.

Even if you disagree with people who use such hacks (I do too), it is interesting.

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