Discussion
We regularly discover vast networks of political and commercial bot nets running on major social media sites doing their best to post some agenda. But ... people still stay in these cesspits. I think we all assume the bot nets influence OTHER people and each of us is too smart and savvy to be influenced.
However this is false.
I have been a one woman pro-ant network and I have and impact and can prove it.
Of course less innocent operations are effective.
@futurebird Of course you have the assistance of Our Lady Pica the Cat.
The bitter pill is that the only way to not be influenced by bots is to avoid the environments where they are common.
No you can't spot them all. No you can't post back and turn the tide.
Do you want fake people with outsize influence in the conversation or not? If not then you just can't use X.
And your presence in these social networks, however small you might think it is, makes them places more people want to be.
You can't use X at all or even talk about it without supporting it.
@futurebird Not just X. I’m gobsmacked at the preponderance of AI slop on YouTube.
This is without considering what the owners of big networks might do to the algorithms to push their agenda.
It's not 100 percent effective but I think there are a lot of "smart people" pundits, journalists, writers, artists who think they aren't being manipulated ... but they are.
I do think people will adapt, but in the gap there are many lucrative bamboozlments to get done. People run scams and advertise because sometimes, just enough it works.
@futurebird I think most modern influence runs on spam economics (because it is spam, in all but name); it's so cheap it doesn't need anything close to 100% effectiveness. Even 1% effectiveness, or a fraction thereof, is plenty.
@futurebird the first time I spotted a bot net working to influence opinion i was rather shocked.
Early during Elizabeth Warren's campaign, WaPo's comment section was laudatory of her. Each comment unique and and personal.
Then it hit the news that she was gaining in the polls, gaining traction. Overnight the comments changed. They became critical, mean, simplistic and repetitive.
Was like a switch, going from heartfelt support to loud, constant ragging. Because Elizabeth Warren had gained enough in the polls to be a threat.
And that was someplace inconsequential, the comments section on news articles, imagine a major social media platform.