A Trip to the Woodshed | 20 comments (20 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: A Trip to the Woodshed (4.00 / 2)

https:/theintercept.com/2017/11/06/how-twitter-secretly-benefits-from-bots-and-fake-accounts

Apparently Twitter has known that they had a lot of fake accounts and bots - often from Ukraine and Russia - and avoided doing anything about them, not to decrease their growth figures.

by fjallstrom on Mon Nov 6th, 2017 at 08:35:10 PM EST

"sockpuppet" (4.00 / 2)

Entered the internet chat lexicon Day 1, last century.
There is no honest reason therefore why anyone should have taken Facebook (or any other "platform") claim of user accounts at face value. None.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Tue Nov 7th, 2017 at 04:27:51 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Well... (none / 1)

Why Twitter Is the Best Social Media Platform for Disinformation - Thomas Rid (Opinion) - Motherboard

Twitter's poor market performance makes the problem worse. The social news platform, in contrast to Facebook or Google, has never made money. It therefore pays more attention to its shareholders. One of the most important metrics for its stock price is the "active user base." Millions of bots and fake accounts are boosting the numbers, making the active user base appear much larger than it actually is. The open market is thus creating an incentive to hide the bots. Were Twitter forced to admit the true extent of fake accounts and fake traffic on its platform, it could be the death of the little blue bird.
All of this makes Twitter a convenient disinformation platform. Jack Dorsey, the CEO, has built a news platform optimised for disinformation--not by intention, but in effect.

by Bernard (bernard) on Tue Nov 7th, 2017 at 09:27:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]

A Trip to the Woodshed | 20 comments (20 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)