Socialbots being designed to sway elections, influence stock market, attack governments

[octoberlib]

Now come socialbots. These automated charlatans are programmed to tweet and retweet. They have quirks, life histories and the gift of gab. Many of them have built-in databases of current events, so they can piece together phrases that seem relevant to their target audience. They have sleep-wake cycles so their fakery is more convincing, making them less prone to repetitive patterns that flag them as mere programs. Some have even been souped up by so-called persona management software, which makes them seem more real by adding matching Facebook, Reddit or Foursquare accounts, giving them an online footprint over time as they amass friends and like-minded followers.

Researchers say this new breed of bots is being designed not just with greater sophistication but also with grander goals: to sway elections, to influence the stock market, to attack governments, even to flirt with people and one another.Socialbots are being circulated around the Web for many purposes. To irritate his adversaries, a software developer from Australia designed a bot that automatically responds to tweets from climate change deniers, sending them counterarguments and links to studies debunking their claims. A security engineer in California programed a bot to scoop up reservations for State Bird Provisions, a trendy restaurant in San Francisco. Mercenary armies of bots can be bought on the Web for as little as $250.


Other bots have more underhanded ambitions. Last year, officials from Mexico’s governing Institutional Revolutionary Party were accused of using bots to sabotage the party’s critics by appropriating some of their hashtags and flooding Twitter with identical posts, designed to trip Twitter’s spam filter. Believing the posts to be spam, Twitter soon began blocking those hashtags entirely, temporarily silencing the critics, which was exactly what the government officials intended.

During a dispute over a Russian parliamentary election in 2011, thousands of Twitter bots, created months before but largely dormant, suddenly began posting hundreds of messages a day targeting anti-Kremlin activists, aiming to drown them out, according to security analysts. Researchers say similar tactics have been used more recently by the government in Syria.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/sunday-review/i-flirt-and-tweet-follow-me-at-socialbot.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

[arely staircase]

1. hey, possible job for Snowden

"During a dispute over a Russian parliamentary election in 2011, thousands of Twitter bots, created months before but largely dormant, suddenly began posting hundreds of messages a day targeting anti-Kremlin activists, aiming to drown them out, according to security analysts"

[leveymg]

3. Takes a bot to know a bot to recommend a job for a bot.

What ya think a bot that?

[nashville_brook]

6. blahaahahaha!

[LongTomH]

2. Paid, rightwing trolls are already using sophisticated 'bots to search for Progressive sites

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251319279

[octoberlib]

7. I didn't see this article. Thanks for posting!

Last month the Nation posted an article on NC's horrible new voting laws. I got to the article right after it had been posted and the comments section was already filled with post after post extolling the virtues of voter id. I figured they were paid trolls.

[nyquil_man]

9. Such posts generally use exactly the same phrases.

I assumed it was due to their having only one brain among them.

[Katashi_itto]

4. The Anti-Snowden crowd would know all about this.

[backscatter712]

11. I'd like to give some of those characters a Turing Test... n/t

[Katashi_itto]

12. Bwhahaha!!!! Oh that is an excellent point!

Pity we don't have Turing agents...

[PowerToThePeople]

5. K&R

[mick063]

8. If a bot can beat me in a credible debate

I will fight for that bot's right to be recognized as a sentient being.

[backscatter712]

10. This looks familiar...

but didn't you know, there's no such thing as shills, psy-ops or propaganda-bots on DU.

Why every username has a unique human face behind it, and every person who logs onto Democratic Underground posts in good faith!

[arely staircase]

13. of good faith and paid shills

According to Skinner:

This whole who-is-the-paid-shill witch hunt is disruptive nonsense.

It betrays an utter lack of creativity on the part of the people making the accusation. They are so convinced that they are right that they cannot imagine someone else might hold a different point of view in good faith. Either that or they are incapable of advocating for their own point of view on the merits. -

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1259&pid=2716

so disrupt away.

[Scuba]

14. Wow, you post that a lot!

[arely staircase]

15. twice is a lot? nt

[BumRushDaShow]

16. As Rev. Sharpton is wont to say

If you throw a rock in a pig pen, the one that squeals is the one that got hit.