13 votes

The Knight Foundation commissioned a study to analyze bot accounts that spread fake news on Twitter. This is what they found.

3 comments

  1. [3]
    Abrown
    (edited )
    Link
    Key quote from their research: There's a more in-depth report downloadable as a PDF at the bottom of the page. I highly recommend reading both, they're fascinating yet disturbing. Everyone knows...

    Key quote from their research:

    Twitter claims that they have cracked down on automated accounts that spread fake news and engage in “spammy behavior. Yet despite this, 83% of the mapped accounts that spread fake and conspiracy news during the 2016 election are still active today, February 07, 2019. Nearly two years later, as we approach
    the 2018 election, these same accounts are still publishing more than a million tweets in a typical day.”

    There's a more in-depth report downloadable as a PDF at the bottom of the page. I highly recommend reading both, they're fascinating yet disturbing. Everyone knows the bots are still present on Twitter and that every official announcement of a bot purge is a bit of a slap in the face and seems like bailing water out of a ship using a bucket with no bottom, so this isn't really "news" per se, but it is hard-data confirming what we all suspected at least. twitter.com/josh_emerson is a good guy to follow for regular updates on this kind of thing btw.

    10 votes
    1. [2]
      Deimos
      Link Parent
      I think this is very much one of those "it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it" problems. Twitter reported their number of daily...

      I think this is very much one of those "it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it" problems.

      Twitter reported their number of daily active users for the first time today, and their stock dropped 10% in response. Every bot they ban makes that number even lower, along with all of the other numbers they use to show how big and active the site is (daily number of tweets, etc.). The unfortunate reality is that it seems to be in their best interest to ban as few bots (and humans) as they possibly can.

      10 votes
      1. Abrown
        Link Parent
        Agreed re:banning reasoning. I'm surprised the SEC hasn't investigated them for not disclosing the proportion of bots to humans when filing for their IPO. The Axios article is a little short on...

        Agreed re:banning reasoning. I'm surprised the SEC hasn't investigated them for not disclosing the proportion of bots to humans when filing for their IPO. The Axios article is a little short on details, but this Mashable article has a little more depth and explains why they're no longer advertising their MAU. tldr; they're changing to "Monetizable DAUs" instead, which is a little murky - likely on purpose.

        4 votes