To test this, I used BotOrNot, a computer program Davis helped develop that leverages machine learning to determine the likelihood a given Twitter account is actually run by a computer. You not only add volume, but you lend credibility to the message, when in reality, it’s really only one person.” We know that that’s false, but that’s just how we work. “We as humans tend to say, the more people talking about something, the more likely it is to be true. student at Indiana University who studies Twitter bots. “We like to say they act as a megaphone on social media,” said Clayton A. And it would certainly deflate Trump’s persona if a substantial portion of his Twitter community turned out not to be real, especially considering how often he boasts about the size of his following and cites it among his qualifications. But social media fakery is arguably a whole new sphere of American campaigns-one with its own dynamics that will only get more interesting in future cycles.įaux followers can come with risks, as demonstrated by Andrés Sepúlveda, the convicted Latin American political consultant who reportedly wielded an army of 30,000 fake Twitter accounts to sway public opinion. Americans are now so familiar with the common set pieces-the crowded rally, the carefully timed roadside stop-that they’re largely taken for granted as part of the political process. While the numbers aren’t conclusive, it’s worth wondering: How much of the candidates’ popularity can be traced back to bots?Īnd does it even matter? After all, there are few things more fake than the unending cheeriness of a presidential campaign. As for the Democrats, Hillary Clinton’s account reportedly has a million fake Twitter followers. This isn’t the first time folks have speculated the Trump campaign hired bots to spread its candidate’s message. Twitter subsequently suspended many of them. Many of these accounts, Ruffini noted, had previously tweeted “17 Marketing Tips for B2B Websites.” They were bots-automated accounts that exist only to extend the social reach of whoever hires them. In April, Patrick Ruffini, a political digital consultant in Alexandria, Virginia, posted a spreadsheet of nearly 500 pro-Trump Twitter accounts that had tweeted, in unison, a message encouraging voters to file FCC complaints against robocalls from the Cruz campaign. But some have offered a more subtle explanation for Trump’s virality. The New York billionaire is undoubtedly popular. That’s not quite Bieber-level, but it’s still pretty good. And yet more than 2,000 people retweeted this post, and another 9,000 favorited it. Trump was notifying his fans that he would appear, in 20 minutes, on a show where he is frequently interviewed.
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