Who uses social media bots in experiments?

[solvaholic]

I believe people curate social media bots with wide followings, and sell access to them. I'm curious who's using those bots for social science experiments. I'd like to learn from their work.

Who uses those social media bots in experiments?

[solvaholic]

Leads:

• [x] https://phys.org/news/2017-09-twitter-bots-good-reveals-social.html
• [x] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00141-1
• [x] https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2016/7/204021-the-rise-of-social-bots/fulltext
• [x] https://www.elsevier.com/connect/story/communicating-science/social-media/how-to-use-social-media-for-science
• [x] https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2015/02/17/do-evil-the-business-of-social-media-bots

[solvaholic]

https://phys.org/news/2017-09-twitter-bots-good-reveals-social.html

Moral: Social media can be used for good.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5609738/

[solvaholic]

Also Emilio Ferrara, USCIS and Technical University of Denmark.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00141-1

Consider bots' input, don't filter it. Stop repeating the lie that the bots don't influence people.

[solvaholic]

https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2016/7/204021-the-rise-of-social-bots/fulltext

Lots of examples of "someone" having used social bots to influence people's behavior.

I want the consumer experience. How do I find someone who sells bot-influence-as-a-service, see how they describe it, how much it costs?

[solvaholic]

https://www.elsevier.com/connect/story/communicating-science/social-media/how-to-use-social-media-for-science

Seems more like how a person uses social media, not how bots do or how a person uses bots.

[solvaholic]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2015/02/17/do-evil-the-business-of-social-media-bots

Followers and Likes are for sale online. How are those described?

https://www.upyourviews.com

Get real views, likes, comments, and subscribers!

I'd shop there, support people who use the Oxford comma. Or maybe I'd be supporting AI who've learned to use it?

We are the premier Youtube video promotional service. We have helped thousands of people promote their videos to give them an advantage over their competition.

Just now that Google search the author suggests turns up 892 project repositories.

And also...

All views are 100% real – No Bots!

They offer 1,000 views for $9.99. Almost $0.01 per view. Are they motivating up to 1,000 humans to effectively view one or more videos, while covering their overhead, at $0.01 per?

Well, not my use case anyway. I want to see the journey from "I want people to do/believe X" to "Here is the Twitter campaign that'll make that happen".

[solvaholic]

I got through that checklist and feel no closer to an answer to my question.

• [ ] Re-phrase the question, "Who uses social media bots in experiments?"

[solvaholic]

I guess one answer to my original question in this issue is "the US Air Force".

The thinking behind the question was 1) I hear a narrative about social bots being used for "bad", 2) I figure it'd be double-plus-un "bad" to solve police brutality, racial inequality, and inimication of non-white people in America, 3) I figure a platform that can be used for "bad" can also be used for not-"bad", so 4) I'd like to see how anyone employs social bots and 5) I'm especially interested in seeing how people employ social bots for not-"bad". 6) I expect folks who use social bots for legitimate experiments document their procedures and findings.

Who hires social media bots for legitimate experiments? And is willing to discuss how?

Ok yeah probably a tall order. Maybe find Emilio Ferrara and/or someone from Technical University of Denmark and ask them what they found about outsourcing the bot farm, before they invested in building their own.