Bots and fake accounts have taken over our social media platforms!
What are bots? Lutz Finger from Forbes defines bots as ‘Bots are algorithms acting in social media networks. But to the outside world, they look like a real user. They can come in all shapes and sizes, and they are borderline perfect. Some of them are very simple. And there are loads of services that will offer you bots, ranging from bots who will like whatever you post and fake followers to much more.’ Twitter estimates that 5% of active accounts on their platform are fake.
Bots can be bought or manufactured through software and have many applications including marketing, creating awareness, generating fame/ infamy, influencing public opinion, and spamming. Some examples of how these crafty collections of code are affecting social media include the war between T-Series and PewDiePie on YouTube, the band ‘Threatin’, the restaurant ‘The Shed at Dulwich’, and the 2016 US elections.
The subgap war between PewDiePie and T Series was to see if T Series would overtake PewDiePie as the YouTube channel with the highest number of subscribers. If you want more information about this, please click here. Supporters of both channels were using bots and fake accounts in order to inflate the sub count with YouTube occasionally purging these fake accounts making the subgap fluctuate back and forth. Eventually, unfortunately, our YouTube King fell and T Series claimed the throne.
Another example of how bots and fake accounts are infecting social media is the example of ‘Threatin. If you would like to read an article about this by the Guardian, please click here. Threatin is a band that faked a play history and social media following in order to book large gigs in the UK. The band was found out after only a handful of people showed up to these large venues. It appeared that the band had purchased a social media following and that most of the fans were actually fake social media accounts. Eventually, the social media pages were locked or taken down and some members from the band left.
The final example is about the weaponization of bots and fake accounts. If you would like to read more about this, please click here. It’s about to the 2016 US elections. There was Russian interference through fake accounts with the US elections on both sides in order to generate more tension between the two major parties, Democrats and Republicans. These fake accounts would start Twitter arguments, organize two polarizing rallies across the street from each other, and other things that would antagonize both parties.
So, are there any marketing applications of bots and fake accounts? Yes, bots can be used to spam users similar to email or phone calls. One example of this that happened to me recently was getting a follower or like on Soundcloud which ended up having a profile image that was advertising 1,000 followers for a certain price. This could also be replaced with other advertising; however, this approach would be highly unethical. This approach also becomes the clutter that marketing desires to cut through.
So, what do you guys think? Are fake accounts really that irritating or can they be avoided? Do you think you could distinguish the difference between a real and a fake account or are you part of the 30% of Twitter users who cannot? Please let me know in the comments section below.
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Links:
https://www.newstatesman.com/economics/2013/08/bot-wars-why-you-can-never-buy-concert-tickets-online
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