Forum Message

Topic: Spotting a bot
Posted by: Mark Evans
Date/Time: 04/11/19 08:20:00

A fake account will usually have an autogenerated account name with lots of numbers. It may have a photo and a bio which seem convincing but the image will be a stock one and the account details generic. It will post almost exclusively on one subject generally retweeting posts with a favoured point of view. They will have been set up relatively recently and become very active, very quickly.

The point of these bots is to game the system on Twitter. Lots of retweets makes a post more prominent and creates the impression of popularity. The post then may also get more retweets from genuine accounts. If you have a look at the post that accounts like this are promoting you will see they are getting similar support from obvious bot accounts.

The one highlighted in this thread is clearly a bot. I've reported it.


Entire Thread
TopicDate PostedPosted By
Russian Bots Targeting Brentford and Isleworth seat?03/11/19 09:19:00 Dan Evans
   Re:Russian Bots Targeting Brentford and Isleworth seat?03/11/19 09:25:00 Iris Hill
      Re:Re:Russian Bots Targeting Brentford and Isleworth seat?03/11/19 09:29:00 Paul Corcoran
         Re:Re:Re:Russian Bots Targeting Brentford and Isleworth seat?03/11/19 11:11:00 Francis Rowe
            Re:Re:Re:Re:Russian Bots Targeting Brentford and Isleworth seat?03/11/19 12:22:00 Iris Hill
   Re:Russian Bots Targeting Brentford and Isleworth seat?03/11/19 12:51:00 Bobbie Carnegie
      Spotting a bot04/11/19 08:20:00 Mark Evans
         Re:Spotting a bot06/11/19 07:47:00 Francis Rowe
            Re:Re:Spotting a bot06/11/19 09:04:00 Alan Clark
               Reply09/11/19 09:56:00 Kevin Howard

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