Unpopular opinion: “the other side is just bots” is the new “the other side is just paid protestors.”
Bot warfare is a very real and very serious form of information warfare but the idea that any particular political actor is using it disproportionately is pretty difficult to prove. This article, for example, identifies a study which found a third of internet traffic is made up of “bad bots.” The study shows that the VAST majority of bad bot traffic is targeting Gaming (virtual currency farming), IT (DDoS), and Data Scraping, with propaganda bots making up less than 2%.
One quibble: it ain’t new. I’ve been accused of being a bot on /r/conspiracy for well over a decade.
But my response has long since been the same: does it matter? Whether I’m a bot has absolutely zero bearing on the truth of what I’m saying. Don’t get me wrong, we should definitely do something to curb botting, but I agree with you: if you find yourself using it as a reason to dismiss an argument you’re just relying on a garbage ad hominem.
I checked the report, but it seems at no point it seems to clarify what they consider “bot traffic”. Is it measured in api calls, page views, or bytes? Generally the term traffic is meant as raw data transported, but in that context those numbers make no sense.
For example, one of the biggest traffic consumers in the Internet is video streaming. There’s no way in hell that half, or even a tenth, of that data is fake - it would simply cost too much to waste it on bots. Both for the bot owners as well as the streaming providers.
This level of vagueness and lack of transparency (what do the numbers mean, and where do they come from) does not fill me with confidence on this report.
I’d say it’s unpopular because we have a lot of evidence to the contrary. We know for a fact that a large amount of traffic on Twitter and other social media sites are bots. We know for a fact that many political actors are paid. The problem is the people complaining about it most tend to be the ones who use them the most. Casting aspersions against those who don’t. All in an effort to confuse and muddy the waters so no one questions their use.
The same for fake news. People crying about the most are the ones who put out the most. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Even if the accusations are often false
Realistically any group would be foolish not to take advantage of something like Bots or AI to help Drive their message. Even if it’s true.
We should just never take anyone screaming accusations at face value though.
Unpopular opinion: “the other side is just bots” is the new “the other side is just paid protestors.”
That’s literally what’s happening here…
They use to pay people thru an app to do this, now they use bots…
Like, I got called a racist once for telling another white employee that if they wanted the admin leave for an office holiday party, they had to stay at work till it started.
That obviously doesn’t make me a racist, but if you put on an Obama mask and started making monkey noises… That’s still racist, even tho that old guy called me racist for not letting him leave before the holiday party started.
Unpopular opinion: “the other side is just bots” is the new “the other side is just paid protestors.”
Bot warfare is a very real and very serious form of information warfare but the idea that any particular political actor is using it disproportionately is pretty difficult to prove. This article, for example, identifies a study which found a third of internet traffic is made up of “bad bots.” The study shows that the VAST majority of bad bot traffic is targeting Gaming (virtual currency farming), IT (DDoS), and Data Scraping, with propaganda bots making up less than 2%.
One quibble: it ain’t new. I’ve been accused of being a bot on /r/conspiracy for well over a decade.
But my response has long since been the same: does it matter? Whether I’m a bot has absolutely zero bearing on the truth of what I’m saying. Don’t get me wrong, we should definitely do something to curb botting, but I agree with you: if you find yourself using it as a reason to dismiss an argument you’re just relying on a garbage ad hominem.
I checked the report, but it seems at no point it seems to clarify what they consider “bot traffic”. Is it measured in api calls, page views, or bytes? Generally the term traffic is meant as raw data transported, but in that context those numbers make no sense.
For example, one of the biggest traffic consumers in the Internet is video streaming. There’s no way in hell that half, or even a tenth, of that data is fake - it would simply cost too much to waste it on bots. Both for the bot owners as well as the streaming providers.
This level of vagueness and lack of transparency (what do the numbers mean, and where do they come from) does not fill me with confidence on this report.
Nice try, propaganda bot.
I’d say it’s unpopular because we have a lot of evidence to the contrary. We know for a fact that a large amount of traffic on Twitter and other social media sites are bots. We know for a fact that many political actors are paid. The problem is the people complaining about it most tend to be the ones who use them the most. Casting aspersions against those who don’t. All in an effort to confuse and muddy the waters so no one questions their use.
The same for fake news. People crying about the most are the ones who put out the most. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Even if the accusations are often false
Realistically any group would be foolish not to take advantage of something like Bots or AI to help Drive their message. Even if it’s true.
We should just never take anyone screaming accusations at face value though.
That’s literally what’s happening here…
They use to pay people thru an app to do this, now they use bots…
Like, I got called a racist once for telling another white employee that if they wanted the admin leave for an office holiday party, they had to stay at work till it started.
That obviously doesn’t make me a racist, but if you put on an Obama mask and started making monkey noises… That’s still racist, even tho that old guy called me racist for not letting him leave before the holiday party started.