[oregontim]

Wow wow wow, this is so important. I'm not surprised at the possibility, but shocked to see it's that high. That's h*ge. And who are we kidding — it has h*ge impact on the vote. It's literally killing us.

I advertise on both Twitter and Facebook. We should all understand how frighteningly easy it is to amplify a post or tweet. In either case, I can send my opinion to millions of people who see it as my opinion. $10 per day buys me single-digit thousands of views per week. So the budget is the only limit.

And with bots it gets worse. I get emails regularly offering me 1,000 twitter bots accounts, plus a script to automate them, for as little as $29.95. So simple software turns me into the sorcerer's apprentice, waving a baton, managing thousands of multiplications of whatever I want to say.

I buy those bots and do the scripting software and now my opinion goes out as 1,000 different people. For free. And if I have the budget to advertise, then there's another multiplier.

Do we think for a minute that Twitter on any politically related public policy issue isn't 46% bots? Do we realize how much that affects all of us?

This is really tough for me because it's between the devil and the deep blue sea. I've been all for net neutrality for decades. I don't want government regulation. And I understand how Facebook and Twitter don't want to become judge and jury. And shouldn't be. But damn, if we do nothing, public opinion is for sale and this reality has a lot to do with election results and public policy,

Researchers culled through more than 200 million tweets since January discussing the virus and found that about 45% were sent by accounts that behave more like computerized robots than humans. 

It is too early to say conclusively what individuals or groups are behind the bot accounts, but researchers said the tweets appeared aimed at sowing divisions in America.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus...ikely-bots

[oregontim]

Wow wow wow, this is so important. I'm not surprised at the possibility, but shocked to see it's that high. That's h*ge. And who are we kidding — it has h*ge impact on the vote. It's literally killing us.

I advertise on both Twitter and Facebook. We should all understand how frighteningly easy it is to amplify a post or tweet. In either case, I can send my opinion to millions of people who see it as my opinion. $10 per day buys me single-digit thousands of views per week. So the budget is the only limit.

And with bots it gets worse. I get emails regularly offering me 1,000 twitter bots accounts, plus a script to automate them, for as little as $29.95. So simple software turns me into the sorcerer's apprentice, waving a baton, managing thousands of multiplications of whatever I want to say.

I buy those bots and do the scripting software and now my opinion goes out as 1,000 different people. For free. And if I have the budget to advertise, then there's another multiplier.

Do we think for a minute that Twitter on any politically related public policy issue isn't 46% bots? Do we realize how much that affects all of us?

This is really tough for me because it's between the devil and the deep blue sea. I've been all for net neutrality for decades. I don't want government regulation. And I understand how Facebook and Twitter don't want to become judge and jury. And shouldn't be. But damn, if we do nothing, public opinion is for sale and this reality has a lot to do with election results and public policy,

Researchers culled through more than 200 million tweets since January discussing the virus and found that about 45% were sent by accounts that behave more like computerized robots than humans. 

It is too early to say conclusively what individuals or groups are behind the bot accounts, but researchers said the tweets appeared aimed at sowing divisions in America.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus...ikely-bots