The usual lead-up to an American election is the revised version of old-style McCarthyism. 350 million people say nothing. 3 people or 3 bots do a Tweet, and it’s a “market sample”. The hell you say. That’s about all that’s happening on Twitter at the moment.
Issue-based bots and trolls are hardly new. At the moment, it’s all about climate denial and other American conservative things. As though anyone else gives a damn.
So what IS new, you ask, swilling down a hearty brew of yet more politicized drivel?
Try this:
- Bots aren’t people.
- They don’t vote.
- The posters know that.
- So do the real users.
- Threats are criminal offenses.
- Anything you say can be a civil case.
- Nothing online is immune to legal action.
How many double standards do you want? “Democratizing” criminal offenses is a Twitter policy?
This may not be just “Musk again”. How much time can he possibly have to make a cluster like this out of Twitter?
If you’re a billionaire, you can expect to be surrounded by sycophantic vermin. Musk must have accumulated his share of these paragons of mediocrity.
Their advice is about as trustworthy as they are. Sycophants usually think they’re geniuses. So they give favors to their equally sycophantic political cronies.
Let’s do a shopping list of issues:
Moderators exist for a reason. I’ve done moderator work in Europe. Part of the job involved fighting of a spam-bot attack with no help. It was doable, but this was pretty unfocused, off-the-wall stuff.
Nobody has or ever will care what a troll or a bot has to say. This isn’t content. It has no actual value.
Cambridge Analytica was the producer of this mode of spam. Look what happened to them, and is still happening to them and Meta. If you’re part of the problem, someone will figure out how to do that to you.
Facebook has a similar problem. All you need to do is search a hashtag like “climate” or “evolution”, and then post your bot stuff or your paid trolls. Easy. A house brick could do that.
The business side is worse. Twitter is replacing real users with bots and losing real users, in effect. Advertisers don’t want to sell to bots. Some of them could do without selling to nutcases, too.
There is literally nothing on Earth less interesting than American politics. A roadkill would have better conversational skills and better information.
The world, which also uses Twitter, has had quite enough since 2016. Lose these morons. Now.
The question is how long this can go on before something hits the fan. Twitter isn’t too appealing as a platform with a majority of bots. I’ll keep using it, but have to say expectations are not high.
More seriously – Even the social media “messiahs” can’t hype this. It’s a massive buzzkill for everyone. Simple enough?
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
