Welcome back yet again Kurt and fellow tweeters! Today we are talking about the robot invasion we are all secretly (and not so secretly) facing. But this is not your typical robot invasion, so strap in for another edition of me teaching you fun things about media.

Unlike most of my topics, this one is broader and impacts a wider variety of people. Social media bots are a thing that affects every single social media user, whether they know about the bots or not.

Social media bots are automated programs that are built to engage with social media platforms and the people on those platforms. These bots are meant to imitate human users, which can make determining bots from actual human accounts difficult. But what are bots actually for?

Well, multiple things actually:
- Amplifying popular people/movements
- Influencing elections
- Influencing financial markets
- Amplify scamming tactics
- Spreading spam
- Shutting down free speech (by spamming and overwhelming feeds)
Information From:
https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/bots/what-is-a-social-media-bot/#:~:text=Broadly%20speaking%2C%20social%20media%20bots,in%20dishonest%20and%20nefarious%20ways.

A study by the University of Reading School of Systems Engineering, discussed in the Cloud Flare article above, explains that 30% of people were deceived by a social media bot account. It is due to the sophisticated nature of some bot accounts that make them hard to decipher.

Here are a few tips in potentially identifying a social bot:
1. See if their profile photo is one that can be found on google by doing a reverse search
2. Analyze the timing of their posts and see if it alines with the time zone they claim to be in.
3. Use a bot detection service

But now that we know what bots are, what they do and how to identify them, are these bots actually dangerous or are just annoying and overhyped?

While they are not the kind of robots that will overtake the world as phones, fridges, and microwaves do in the movies, their presence in the world is still disruptive. The most damaging thing these bots do, in my opinion, is their ability to spread fake news, and so do quickly.

Due to the fast nature of social media, a bot spreading fake information can be done quickly. Social media is extremely influential on us and our ability to believe what we read just because it is on the internet (so it must be true).

One thing specifically susceptible to bot interaction on social media is politically discussions. In attempts to drown out REAL conversations from legit people, bots will flood timelines with information, which as discusses may or may not be correct.

Cloud Flare stated that "as much as 20% of political discussion on social media was generated by about 400,000 social media bots." And it is this statistic that leads to defending why I stand that bots are a damaging part of our social media experience.

The Atlantic states that bots are the future of propaganda and in terms of debates as the bots will likely drown out human interaction and input entirely, but will likely be unable to "tilt" the debate.

Information from: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/01/future-politics-bots-drowning-out-humans/604489/

While the effects of bots are still unknown, and the bots are unable to be eliminated as of yet, the harm is inevitable and the spread of misinformation will be rapid.
Until an eradication method is determined, reporting bots that are found is our best bet to limit the numbers.

That wraps up today's discussion on social media bots!
I hope readers found this thread useful to understand what bots are and how to spot them.
And remember, report bots when you find them (otherwise the robot invasion might be closer than we think).