Bots.

By now we are probably all aware of them. In fact, if you’ve been active on Twitter for any period of time and said something that someone else disagreed with, you’ve probably been accused of being a bot.

But as much as people complain about bots, we are currently witnessing a cultural shift in social media culture of profound consequence.

Bots are designed to imitate people, but now people are imitating bots.

What is a Bot?

Bots -- or as we used to call them: Shills or Sock Puppets -- can be a few different things. They can be actual automated software programs, they can be a net of programs managed by a person or people, or they can be who are employed by some organization to influence trending topics on social media, especially Twitter.

I’m reminded of a video that @fulltimegeek made a while back where he sang:

Shills, they’re multiplyin’, and I’m losing control!

(If you remember that video, my friend, I’d love to watch that again!)

You can spot a bot or shill by a number of different tells. Of course, these are changing all the time as legacy social media cracks down on bots, but there are certian traits that are hard not to recognize.

Typically, a political bot is a partisan ideolouge. Their posts are incendiary and provocative. They’ll use words and phrases like “trumpanzee” or “libtard” and throw a bunch of topical hashtags in their tweets (but not too many, as they’ve evolved to be weary of exposure for such things).

The intention of these bots is to influence culture by manipulating the character and virality of trending topics. Trending topics get attention and are picked up by influential accounts. So, basically, it’s an artificial way of lifting a topic into wide public view.

Believe it or not, governments have used bots to influence culture for a long time

According to Nick Fielding and Ian Cobain in an article from 2011 titled Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media

A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an "online persona management service" that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.

The project has been likened by web experts to China's attempts to control and restrict free speech on the internet. Critics are likely to complain that it will allow the US military to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives.

The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities – known to users of social media as "sock puppets" – could also encourage other governments, private companies and non-government organisations to do the same.

The operation is serious, with massive State funding and attention. The accounts are to be as authentic as possible, they should pass as real people:

The Centcom contract stipulates that each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers should be able to operate false identities from their workstations "without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries".

And If you think this is specifically a US only operation, think again.

More governments manipulate media with 'bots,' trolls: study

More governments are following the lead of Russia and China by manipulating social media and suppressing dissent online in a grave threat to democracy, a human rights watchdog said on Tuesday.

A study of internet freedom in 65 countries found 30 governments are deploying some form of manipulation to distort online information, up from 23 the previous year.

And further:

The report said online manipulation and disinformation tactics played an important role in elections in at least 18 countries over the past year, including the United States.

"The use of paid commentators and political bots to spread government propaganda was pioneered by China and Russia but has now gone global," said Michael Abramowitz, president of Freedom House.

"The effects of these rapidly spreading techniques on democracy and civic activism are potentially devastating."

Serious business

So why are people acting like these bots, trolls, and sock puppets?

Because bots get noticed

It’s all about the attention economy.

These accounts are engineered for high impact and virality. They also often have what are known as “botnets” which are network support systems that maximize bot activities by curating and spreading posts and topics to get them trending.

People want attention, otherwise what’s the point of even saying anything?! So when folks go to the comments of on of the big accounts that they follow, and they see tweets or accounts that get a bunch of likes and replies, they emulate the format of those posts or accounts in the hopes of getting the same level of attention.

Heck, if you play your cards right you might even get the attention of a botnet, and before you know it your post will have hundreds of likes and retweets. Yay!

This is the intention, after all…

Bots are not created to cycle through their own networks; they’re intend to influence actual people and change real culture. That’s the whole point.

And when more and more people act like bots to get attention -- emulating their abrasive, divisive behavior, espousing their ideologies, and delivering their narrative -- they are proving to the bot managers that this approach of shaping shaping culture is highly effective and inexpensive.

All the agencies have to do is get the ball rolling, with a little pushing here and there, and the gullible masses will take over and do the rest.

Why bot behavior should be resisted

We are people.

We have complex histories and views that form nuanced personalities. No person is quite as simple-minded as they may appear on Twitter.

But if we act like bots, we dehumanize each other and ourselves.

So try and treat each other with a little bit of understanding and dignity, even if the person has views different to you. It wasn’t so long ago that great debates were held by average people all across the world on the internet. Knowledge was shared and worldviews were expanded.

Chose empathy over popularity.

Who knows, empathy might start trending.

What do you think?

Do you have any bot experiences you could share?

What do you think about this topic?

Let me know in the comments.

Follow me @shayne