Everything You Need to Know about Twitter Bots

What is it?
One might wonder, what exactly is a Twitter bot? If that is you, you are at the right place. A Twitter bot is basically a robot made from computer software that controls a Twitter account. On the account, the bot can tweet, retweet, like, comment, and more. The individual who created the bot decides what it can do, what words it knows, and how often it tweets.

Are Twitter Bots Bad?

Twitter bots can be viewed from different perspectives, some good and some bad. Some people create bots to be inspirational, funny, or informative. Some examples of good bots include @tinycarebot, @EarthquakesSF, and @Maskchievous. Others create Twitter bots that send out a bunch of spam, violate user privacy, or are simply annoying. The @everyword bot tweeted every single word of the English language starting in 2008 and ended in 2014. It tweeted every 30 minutes- talk about annoying! Spam bots are almost taking over Twitter, especially by companies that sell fake Twitter followers. Recently, Twitter has been working to stop these companies and delete the fake accounts.

@tinycarebot's tweets

Is it Easy to Spot a Bot?
It may be easier than you think to spot bots on Twitter. First, they often say that they are a bot in the username or description. Another obvious thing that they do is tweet in specific or regular time increments. It is also fairly easy to detect spam Twitter accounts when you see them. Some bots are not so easy to detect. It is very likely that we read tweets from bots every day and do not even realize it.

Well, Who Cares Anyways?
Once Twitter caught on to the companies that sold fake Twitter followers, celebrities started losing thousands of followers! They were clearly very unhappy with the big losses. Some others who care about bots are individuals that study Digital Humanities, also called "DHers". One of the things that DHers do is conduct research on how human interactions are changing with the digital world. Social media, and specifically Twitter bots, really strike their interests. They would particularly study if the tweets that the bots produce are meaningful and who the tweets actually belong to. These are both interesting questions. The bots cannot think or come up with meaningful tweets on purpose, but I believe that if someone relates to a tweet, then it would be significant and meaningful to them. The author here would not be Twitter or computer software. The author would be the individual who put everything together. They named the bot and tell it what to do and say. They are the brains and creativity.

You and I Care!
Knowing a little bit of information about bots may cause you to keep your eyes peeled next time you browse Twitter. You may like them, or you may dislike them. In the eyes of DHers, Twitter bots are creative pieces of electronic literature. They add a different form of communication into today's society. Personally, I also find them to be very interesting. They are a unique way for individuals to express their creativity. They are informative, funny, inspirational, and sometimes irritating without even knowing it. Twitter bots are growing daily (hopefully the nice ones), and it is quite possible that they are being created just as quickly as they are being deleted. Bye-bye scam bots!