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If you\u2019ve ever wondered if the hashtag heavy, politically far afield Twitter user you\u2019re about to eviscerate in 140 characters is totally delusional or merely not quite sentient, well, wonder no more.<\/p>\n
On Wenesday, Quartz<\/a> just launched a handy Twitter bot known as @probabot_<\/a> to sort so much automated chaff from Twitter\u2019s proverbial fields of wheat. Probabot identifies political tweets and then analyzes them using something called the Botometer<\/a>, a tool developed by the Indiana University Network Science Institute and the Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research.<\/p>\n This account has a Botometer score of 75.0%, which suggests it is very likely to be a bot (or bot-assisted) https:\/\/t.co\/ft4OZBRH4U<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 probabot (@probabot_) October 23, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The latter project lets users analyze Twitter accounts with machine learning to see the probability of if an account is automated. Accounts can also fall into the category of \u201cbot-assisted\u201d which suggests a combination of bot-style autopilot and human intervention.<\/p>\n Using the Botometer API, Probabot scans accounts on potential axes of botliness, including when they tweet, if the content of their tweets is positive or negative in sentiment, who they tag in their tweets and how often, and who else is in their network. Probabot creator\u00a0Keith Collins explained to TechCrunch how his bot is programmed to avoid false positives through things like avoiding verified users and organization accounts, which sometimes express some bot-like behavior. As Collins explained, accounts that are rated above 48% by the Botometer are flagged as potential bots, while anything over 60% rates as a \u201clikely\u201d bot.<\/p>\n Twitter doesn\u2019t provide a lot of insight around just how widespread its bot problem might be, stating only that about 5% of accounts are \u201cfake or spam accounts.\u201d Even if that number is an accurate estimate, given how prolific some of these bots are they could command an outsized influence on the political discourse on the platform. As Quartz notes, one of the likely bots on Probabot\u2019s list has tweeted over one million times since April 2016, something that even the most loyal Twitter user couldn\u2019t pull off.<\/p>\n This account has a Botometer score of 74.0%, which suggests it is very likely to be a bot (or bot-assisted) https:\/\/t.co\/eH7pVpDIhJ<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 probabot (@probabot_) October 25, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n As one of the researchers behind the Botometer,\u00a0Emilio Ferrara, Ph.D., explained to Quartz<\/a>, \u201cWe found that approximately 15% of the users active in the political conversation one month prior to the 2016 election were likely bots\u2026 and they were responsible to about one in five such political tweets (nearly 20%).\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe usage of bots has migrated during the last year or so from political propaganda to inciting chaos and divisiveness in this country,\u201d Ferrara told TechCrunch. \u201cThe spread of misinformation by means of bots is currently mostly concerned with divisive messaging around social issues, and the impact on our society is more consequential now than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n The Probabot is a useful project, but it\u2019s worth remembering that it can only determine if something is probably<\/em> a bot. So far Probabot has produced a running list of 35 suspected accounts<\/a>, so it could be worth checking back to see what they have in common as the data set expands. Ultimately the tools tie into the Botometer creators\u2019 greater research aims around the study of bots on social platforms, much of which they\u2019ve published<\/a>. In 2017, it\u2019s stuff well worth reading.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/YOGSXQxDkBs\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you\u2019ve ever wondered if the hashtag heavy, politically far afield Twitter user you\u2019re about to eviscerate in 140 characters is totally delusional or merely not quite sentient, well, wonder <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-9757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n
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