When You Know You Are Dealing With a Bot

July 19, 2018 – Yesterday I read an article in MIT Technology Review written by Will Knight in which he described Twitter’s efforts to shut down fake accounts, or bots, on its social media site. As of today, according to the Washington Post, the total number of suspended Twitter accounts is now approaching 70 million.

What is a bot? It is software in the form of an automated social media account that poses as a real person. Not all bots are malicious. Some are marketing-campaign specific helping to promote a brand. The ones of concern are those that spread “fake news,” lies meant to influence human behaviour to meet an ideological or political objective.

How Twitter knows that it has been infested with 70 million maybe bots is a lesson to share with all of us about bot detection. Knight in his article lists a number of ways to determine whether you are dealing with a bot or not. Although the list is Twitter-focused, it is equally applicable to Facebook and other social media platforms.

1. Check out the user profile – This is the easiest way to determine if you are dealing with a fake account. Most bots don’t include a profile photo, link, or biography. Those that do include a photo have stolen it from a real identity.
2. Look at the Tweet syntax – Bots still struggle with language often producing formulaic or repetitive sentences and phrases. Often you will see the types of responses commonly found in chatbot programs. Bots will miss an obvious joke and don’t follow when you change the subject of a conversation suddenly.
3. Recognize Tweet semantics – Bots are designed usually to be narrowly focused, overly obsessed with one particular topic, and reposting the same link again and again or tweeting about little else. Bots tend to be hashtag happy.
4. Look at the rate of Tweets – If a Twitter account sends out a high number of tweets or sends them out at unlikely times, or even if it does it with military precision, these are good signs you are dealing with a bot.
5. Look at the network dynamics of the account – Most of us don’t understand the dynamics of the Internet. Bots don’t follow behave like people in the network. A bot may follow only a few accounts, or a bot may be followed by many other bots. A bot’s tweets may also be incongruous with those of its connections suggesting a lack of any real social interaction.

If you have experienced interactions with bots and have something to add to this list, please feel free to comment.