Bots and Manipulation

[osewalrus]

As we have become more aware of the problem, and of the motivations driving individuals, businesses, organizations and even governments to manipulate social media conversation, we keep discovering just how much of the nastiness of social media is bot driven. 

Turns out to be an awful lot.
https://www.wired.com/story/new-tool-shows-how-bots-drive-conversation-for-news-events/

And it's fairly sophisticated.
http://www.cits.ucsb.edu/fake-news/spread

One should note from the above linked study that there is a lot of human interaction as a major component. 

On the one hand, this is a fascinating psy ops and cognitive behavior experiment. Even if most of the nastiness is artificial, we should note that it creates a significant negative impact on society as a whole in a number of direct and indirect ways -- including convincing us that the majority of people are a lot nastier than they actually are.

Comments

[vettecat]

Interesting, if discouraging. I wonder how much less incendiary the current climate would be if there weren't so many bots stoking it.