DIGITAL LIFE | ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | ELECTION 2020 | EPIPHANY

I Caught the First Election Bot.

The story about trying to help the Platform.

When I saw the first bot rally I thought of money. The idea of someone programming thousands of bots, copying random stories, and publishing them behind the Platform’s paywall.

The formula for earnings = number of bots x reading time of all the articles published by those bots = $$, $$$, $$$$, $$$$$ or $$$$$$?

And then I received this comment for my article about bots:

What if you already have that n-amount of money, next stop?

Power.

How to get more power? Influence. Which brings us to the next chapter.

The arrival

I thought about the comment above, bots’ timing of arrival seems ripe, but how exactly the influence works. Maybe, like this:

I’m not a U.S. citizen, but I still care — not so much of the results of the 2020 United States presidential election, I care about my fellow readers and writers on this platform. Deeply. As much as the Platform itself:

Paid, automatic, bulk, or non-genuine interactions Medium depends on various user behaviors — like follows and claps — to determine what content to feature and make the site work well for everyone. So, we don’t allow artificial behaviors that skew this system and as a result degrade or distort other users’ experiences. This includes:

Buying, selling, or trading in accounts or account interactions — including follows, claps, highlights, responses or other traffic

Using services, apps, or arrangements that offer you more follows, claps, or other interactions on your Medium account or content

Registering accounts, posting content, or interacting with users or content automatically, systematically, or programmatically

As a rule abiding writer I have been trying to point out the seriousness of the matter since the 5th of June 2020

Result? Yes, within a week’s time all the bots mentioned were deleted or at least under investigation and then deleted. Well, there were those 2 bots, Laila and Margaret, that actually came back under a new identity.

The feelings in the reader’s comments were mixed:

1. Some had noticed the sudden follower growth.
2. Some were grateful for raising awareness.
3. Some were ignoring the new followers.
4. Some were enjoying the attention from these new follows.
5. Some experienced platform users had even written about the issue and were reporting these bots whenever they showed up.

How are you affected by this?

It depends. Are you a person who blindly follows back? If you are, there is a high chance that you have a lot of bot followers and you are following them as well. The difference? They don’t read your stories.

What you can do about it? Find them and report them. Take some time out of your reading and writing, and organise your followers.

Here’s how to spot them:

1. Bots follow you without any other action (no claps, no mention).
2. They only have a Profile and sometimes Claps.
3. They have a weird or poorly written description of themselves.
4. Their username has a number (usually 1, 2, 5 or 6) or “xy” at the end.
5. A lot of their story headlines are written in all capital letters and their stories’ formatting is off.
6. They have never replied to their readers’ comments.

Conclusion

As I mentioned, I have been pointing out these accounts since 5th of June 2020. I haven’t noticed any real changes from the Platform to stop or to get rid of these artificial behaviors, besides deleting the existing ones that have been reported.

I still get an average of 5–10 bot followers per week.

I understand Platform’s policy of not curating stories about Platform, maybe except if it would help to serve their own purpose of keeping the site and the user experience clean and real.

Just sayin’.

Nevertheless, long live the Platform.

A humble thank you for reading. Reading and writing with Love, Chowa.