Yeah, yeah, social media is here to
stay, it's reality, we all know that, everybody's doing it, more or less…
Except when it's less.
See, here's the weird thing: lots
of the people using social media aren't people.
Robotic
programs—"bots"—are all over the place. Maybe you've flirted with
one….
Ian Urbina in the August 11 Sunday New York Times digs in to this in a piece on "socialbots," automated
algorithms that act like humans on Twitter or Facebook or Reddit or Foursquare,
or you name it: "these automated charlatans are programmed to tweet and
retweet. They have quirks, life histories and the gift of gab."
Indeed.
Urbina reports on research
suggesting that half of the world's internet traffic is generated by machines,
not people. And if you think you're the Pied Piper on Twitter: two-thirds of
the average Twitter user's "followers" are machines, not people.
I'll admit I don't use Twitter,
I've never tweeted….but a little research on Twitter users makes me feel
better: most Twitter users don't use Twitter either.
Over 500 million "people"
use Twitter. One source says about 25% of
the folks who say they use Twitter have actually never sent a tweet, not
one. Another source says HALF of Twitter accounts have never tweeted.
There are
a lot of inactive accounts, and a lot of lurker followers….
…and a lot of bots that are
doing…..what, exactly?
I don't want to get involved with a
computer program on social media, I think bots have issues, y'know?
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