Roughly half the Twitter accounts pushing to 'reopen America' are bots, researchers found

Business Insider ^ | 5/22/2020 | Aaron Holmes

[semimojo]

There's been a surge in bot activity in the past month in online discussions about reopening America from COVID-19 shutdowns, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University said this week.

The researchers analyzed over 200 million tweets discussing COVID-19 and found that roughly half the accounts were likely bots.

They identified the bots by looking for accounts that tweeted more frequently than humanly possible or whose location appeared to rapidly switch among different countries.

It's unclear who's behind the surge in bot activity or whether they're originating from the US or abroad.

[semimojo]

People are stirring the pot...

[corkoman]

[butlerweave]

Well everyone know most of the people on Twitter are not Real ,LOL

[sickoflibs]

I heard that most freepers are bots, heck, I might be one too.

Not sure how to tell.

[gibsonguy]

BI is rat infested cesspool. The Guardian has more credibility.

[Pravious]

Roughly half the Twitter accounts pushing to ‘reopen America’ are bots, researchers found

—

“researchers” for what, the Nazi left?

[dgbrown]

Does this include those they have censored?

[Trillian]

Democrats have mostly bots so they say it’s us. I wonder what that’s called?

[semimojo]

“researchers” for what, the Nazi left?

Carnegie Mellon's pretty legit, especially for IT/internet related stuff.

[fireman15]

If that is true then somewhere around 90% of the Twitter accounts pushing to destroy our economy and country are Chinese bots. Twitter is rife with manipulation from all sides.

[redcatcherb412]

Have noticed if you have less than a hundred followers you are assumed to be a bot. The bot ‘karens’ are fun to troll.

[pepsi_junkie]

The researchers who conducted the study:

[Socon-Econ]

What about bots pushing to close America down? Let’s see their data.

[struggle]

>whose location appeared to rapidly switch among different countries

so...they’re smart enough to have a VPN?

[DannyTN]

I heard that most freepers are bots, heck, I might be one too. Not sure how to tell."

No the freepers are real. A bot couldn't be that stupid.

Actually we do need to reopen, but we need to be sensible about it. Wear masks.

There are a number of positions that I think are just out there. But I get that people are emotional and people are afraid for their jobs and businesses.

• Anti-maskers
• People who think the whole thing is a hoax.
• People still saying it's now worse than the flu despite the death toll that occurred WITH a lock down.
• People encouraging a herd immunity approach
• People refusing to acknowledge that the shut down's did do some good and gave us time to prepare.
• People who think Trump was duped.
• People refusing to acknowledge court precedents and history that communities and states have the right to take actions to protect against communicable diseases.
• People blaming Trump for what their governors did.
• People claiming the goverons are tyrannical when their state legislatures gave the governors the powers to do this.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Yea, right. Just like the bots on FR.

[DarthVader]

When one side resorts to this you know they are losing badly.

[semimojo]

What about bots pushing to close America down? Let’s see their data.

I'd like to see that too.

Even more interesting would be how many operations/people are pushing both sides just to agitate.

[pnut22]

The only time we hear about bots is when a conservative theory or idea is trending. Sorry but I think it’s all hooey.

[A_perfect_lady]

Suurrrre... why, Twitter informed me (back when I had an account) that I had been in contact with Russian bots before the November election. Yes they did! Thing is, I didn’t open the account till December.