I suppose I should feel flattered. Scores of Twitter bots, those automated, pre-programmed fake accounts, started following me last week. I didn’t even realize it was part of a trend until London’s Medical Officer of Health tweeted about it. Then CTV London did a story about it, explaining that ‘prominent’ Londoners were being targeted by these sinister little twits.
I had already begun blocking them by the time I found out I wasn’t alone. We all love to gather followers but I prefer that mine are human. These bots are programmed to hunt for certain people using certain keywords. The suspicion is, they’re preparing for the provincial election. They’ll be used to fire out fake news stories in an attempt to sway voters. This is what people do now, apparently. If you can’t win on merit, you do it any way you can. It doesn’t matter who does it, it’s wrong.
Not all bots are bad but these ones probably are.
How to tell if you’re being followed by a bot? The profile picture is a grey-scale profile without a photo. They have no followers but they follow a lot of accounts. And they haven’t tweeted yet.
Experts can only guess why an onslaught of bots has been unleashed and an upcoming election is the likely suspect. But we can’t really know for sure until they try to accomplish their mission. And if we all block them, they won’t be able to do that.
Here’s a legit question: like you, I have my share of bot followers (I’m naive and hope that they’re just newbies to Twitter who haven’t come up with a headshot they like yet LOL) – but if I don’t follow them back (and I don’t), how can they tweet/try to influence me with any of their propaganda? Do most people follow back – is that the way the game works?
Generally but not always. It’s supposed to be social, right? And you definitely are social on it. Public figures don’t tend to follow a lot of people back but there are exceptions. Soledad O’Brien followed me first! And she follows loads of people. I follow back if it looks like the person might have something interesting to say or offer but I have also unfollowed when I find out they don’t! I will never forget the guy I retweeted one day and he ripped me a new one in a private message. I had to point out that HE controls whether or not his tweets can be retweeted! It’s a darn jungle out there.