Bots vs Beings- An analysis of the Twitter Bot effects in Social Media

If you have a Twitter account, it is more than likely that you have spotted accounts that always seem to be lacking genuine human thoughts and interactions. They usually retweet and respond to the same one or few accounts as their only form of tweets, or always post at a certain time with specific wording or topic. Although there are a number of hints across these profiles, if this sounds familiar, more than likely you have spotted a Twitter bot. 
So what are Twitter bots you may be asking? Well to put it very simply, the New York Times describes them as a software developed to replicate and produce false accounts which are sold as "Twitter followers and retweets to celebrities, businesses and anyone who wants to appear more popular or exert influence online". 

The NY Times article “The Follower Factory” covers a very in- depth description about Twitter bots and their effects on people. There are a number of issues that come along with these fake profiles, as it falsifies many of the positive points and intentions of a social media site. Unfortunately, it makes us question the people we follow and admire, where their career may have been built on a false follower count.

There are three main types of Twitter Bots; scheduled, watcher, and amplification bots, which allow for different forms of information to be shared in different ways. Amplification bots are the kind produced by companies, such as Devumi, who create these false and replicated accounts, which issues such as this. 

There are a number of media theories that the Twitter Bots challenge, and unfortunately lacking in the basic foundations of social media use, such as the  Functional Building Blocks of Social media. When looking at this theory, the goals of Twitter Bots and the goals of social media do not correlate. The issues that come along with these twitter bots include a wide scale theft of social identities and a false social following of many celebrities and influencers. These bots lack the ability to meet many of the needs that social media users require.

But what could have been changed or done differently, where did these Twitter Bots go so very wrong? Well, The seven functional building blocks; Identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation, and groups, all allow for each feature of social media experience to be built and used to examine the success or failure of social media choices.

Identity is self-explanatory, it is the aspects of your self that build who you are as a person, and the same goes for online identity as you reflect aspects of who you are or how you wish to portray yourself to other social media users.
Already here, the Twitter Bot cannot meet this criteria as they are built by coding and often will replicate already existing profiles on the site.

Twitter bots are not often found to have conversations due to the nature of their existence. Tweets are usually pre-coded and pre-set already. They may be scheduled to respond to a particular person every time they tweet, and therefore we could argue in some way there is conversation in a strange and un-authentic way. However, when comparing to common conversation on social media between two people, it is hard to refer to Bots as able to participate in conversation.

Amplification bots as mentioned earlier are the kind that cause issues with social media validity and intentions. However, just like real people, the bots are capable of sharing social content. Although they may not share original content, they still are scheduled to share a particular profiles tweets and information.

Presence discusses how we are able to discover the location of others via social media, and how the connection we have allows for this information to be much more accessible through its use. This aspect is irrelevant to Amplification bots, as if they are relying on the location to release a scheduled tweet it is always a specific location. Watcher bots are waiting for a specific thing to change, such as the earthquake example, however again this is a pre-coded aspect that relies on only one or a few already decided locations.

Although they technically have a coded connection with the celebrity or influencers, it is difficult to say that Bots are capable of the relationship feature of this theory. Relationships are built through the conversation, connection, engagement and the conscious sharing of ideas and information between people. because of these characteristic differences between coded Bot and breathing human, we would say again this is another part of the criteria that Twitter Bots cannot meet.

Celebrities and those who purchase these Twitter Bots are usually people who have a reputation and level of fame that they wish to uphold. It helps to identify the status of social media profiles and those who are behind them. Apparently, it is a "matter of trust", and if we were base our judgment on the Bots' reputation on trust, then they have a reputation- but not a good one. Especially in cases where there has been a theft of social identity and a comparison of posts between the real and fake accounts. The fake account, or Bot, would have a bad reputation and even more so in cases like Jessica Rychly.

Groups are a way of allowing social media users to connect with others with common interests. Although we could say Bots create a group of their own, these fake accounts are usually spotted and not added to groups due to their limited genuine interaction and inability to connect with others.

We can see that the use of amplification bots creates a number of problems for social media users and sites because it decreases the ability for people to connect with other people. If we apply the Shannon Weaver Model to this situation briefly, we can easily determine these Twitter bots as "Noise".  Not only this, but the company Demvi is endorsing and creating replicated social profiles to be sold to celebrities and influencers that become desperate to have numbers and interaction, real or not. So not only are real people's privacy being breached, but also the users of social media are left questioning the reputation of those whom they follow. The seven functional building blocks theory helps to critique and reflect on aspects of amplification bots that do not enable the wants and needs of users. The preference for most would be that the sale of bots for amplification purposes was no longer allowed for social media so that real people are able to reflect on the validity of those they follow.

Although Twitter bots have succeeded in their purpose and use to help bump up followers and bring attention to many now successful celebrities and influencers, it fails in meeting the meaning and intentions that social media attempts to mediate.



Image References: 

Twitter Bot: https://egghead.io/courses/create-your-own-twitter-bots

Functional building blocks diagram: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg_Yyjc8rrCKm3gcLpQzjxbpXc-OJTnos5-Y4q-F9FC7PX0iZriUpVXkwk8bYbP9UGKIbiD89k2WPHVc7I9-Tk09s6lu2cjE4Pq0w40K8yzj1yYHFn-Wbgf1-vsgQuyxNqX_NQxSD5twTO/s1600/LW-Book-Graphics2-768x744.png