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A24 TECHNOLOGY
Monday 6 august 2018

Crackdown on ‘bots’ sweeps up people who tweet often

By SARA BURNETT and tools smarter,” Twitter
Associated Press executives said in a blog
CHICAGO (AP) — Nina To- post earlier this year.
masieski logs on to Twitter Tomasieski and her conser-
before the sun rises. Seated vative friends use so-called
at her dining room table Twitter “rooms” — which
with a nearby TV constant- operate using the group
ly tuned to Fox News, the messaging function — to
70-year-old grandmother amplify their voices.
spends up to 14 hours a She participates in about
day tweeting the praises 10 rooms, each with 50
of President Trump and his members who are invited
political allies, particularly in once they hit a certain
those on the ballot this fall, number of followers. That
and deriding their oppo- number varies, but “new-
nents. bies” might have around
She’s part of a dedicated 3,000, Tomasieski says.
band of Trump supporters Some have far more.
who tweet and retweet Everyone in the room tweets
Keep America Great mes- their own material and also
sages thousands of times a retweets everyone else’s.
day. So a tweet that Tomasieski
“Time to walk away Dems sends may be seen by her
and vote RED in the prima- roughly 51,000 followers,
ries,” she declared in one but then be retweeted by
of her voluminous tweets, dozens more people, each
adding, “Say NO to social- of whom may have 50,000
ism & hate.” or more followers.
While her goal is simply to She says she’s learned
advance the agenda of a some tricks to avoid trouble
president she adores, she with Twitter.
and her friends have been This Oct. 26, 2016 file photo shows a Twitter sign outside of the company’s headquarters in San She’s careful not to exceed
swept up in an expanded Francisco. limits of roughly 100 tweets
effort by Twitter and other Associated Press or retweets an hour. She
social media companies to But the screening has re- meaning tweets aren’t as Dame’s Mendoza College doesn’t use profanity and
crack down on nefarious peatedly and erroneously visible to others, because of Business. she tries to mix up her sub-
tactics used to meddle in flagged Tomasieski and us- of suspected “automated The core problem is that jects to appear more hu-
the 2016 election. ers like her. behavior.” people are coming up with man and less bot-like.
And without meaning to, Their accounts have been “I’m a gal in Southern Cali- new ways to use the plat- During a recent afternoon,
the tweeters have demon- suspended or frozen for fornia,” Smith said. “I am no forms faster than the com- Tomasieski retweeted mes-
strated the difficulty such “suspicious” behavior — bot.” panies can manage them, sages criticizing immigrants
crackdowns face — par- apparently because of The actions have drawn he said. in the U.S. illegally, Demo-
ticularly when it comes to the frequency and relent- criticism from conserva- Twitter did not respond to cratic socialists and the
telling a political die-hard lessness of their messages. tives, who have accused a request for comment. But media. One noted an As-
from a surreptitious com- When they started tweet- Twitter, Facebook and the company has said it sociated Press story about
puter robot. ing support for a conserva- other companies of having identified and challenged an increase in the number
Last week, Facebook said tive lawmaker in the GOP a liberal bias and censor- close to 10 million suspect- of Muslims running for pub-
it had removed 32 fake ac- primary for Illinois gover- ship. It also raises a ques- ed bot or spam accounts in lic office — news the user
counts apparently created nor this spring, news sto- tion: Can the companies May, up from 3.2 million last described as “alarming.”
to manipulate U.S. poli- ries warned that right-wing outsmart the ever-evolving September. Tomasieski says she loves to
tics — efforts that may be “propaganda bots” were tactics of U.S. adversaries if It’s also trying to weed out write. But most important is
linked to Russia. trying to influence the elec- they can’t be sure who’s a “trolls,” or accounts that helping “my guy.”
Twitter and other sites also tion. robot and who’s Nina? harass other users, pick “There is as much enthu-
have targeted automat- “Almost all of us are con- “It’s going to take a really fights or tweet material siasm today as there was
ed or robot-like accounts sidered a bot,” says Toma- long time, I think years, be- that’s considered inflam- when Trump was elected.
known as bots, which au- sieski, who lives in Tennes- fore Twitter and Facebook matory. It’s very quiet, but it’s there.
thorities say were used to see but is tweeting for GOP and other platforms are Twitter acknowledges that My job is to get them to the
cloak efforts by foreign candidates across the U.S. able to deal with a lot of there will be some “false polls,” she said.
governments and politi- Cynthia Smith has been these issues,” said Timo- positives.” “That’s rewarding. I go to
cal bad actors in the 2016 locked out of her account thy Carone, who teach- “Our goal is to learn fast bed feeling like I have ac-
elections. and “shadow banned,” es technology at Notre and make our processes complished something.”q