A Twitterbot is a software program designed to automatically follow Twitter users, like and retweet posts.
Often, the purpose of these bots is benign, such as driving engagement and providing helpful information when a certain keyword or hashtag triggers a bot response. Sometimes the purpose is commercial, such as driving post engagement and promoting goods and services.
But a bot's purpose can also be malicious, such as when they are designed to spread disinformation and propaganda through likes and retweets. This can create a false impression of a certain idea or news story being more truthful and widespread than it is.
Learn how to spot disinformation on social media here.
Although fake user accounts -- or hybrid human-AI accounts with automated elements -- can be found on every social media platform, they are especially prevalent on Twitter. A 2018 Pew Research Center study estimated that two-thirds of tweets containing links to popular websites were posted by bots.
The omnipresence of Twitterbots has even made Elon Musk waver on his offer to buy the platform. After making an offer to purchase Twitter, Musk said the deal could not move forward unless Twitter proved its claim that less than 5% of Twitter users represented spam accounts.
Twitterbots -- like any social media element -- can be used to share information, encourage post engagement, and direct potential customers to a product or service. But they can also be malevolent, spreading misinformation; and creating spam messages, links and ads in an attempt to encourage click-through to legitimate business pages and sometimes phishing websites.
The most common and harmless uses of Twitterbots include the following:
For those who prefer a more organic and less automated Twitter experience, there are several ways to check if a user account is run by a real person.
In February 2022, Twitter launched a new feature that places a robot icon next to a Twitterbot's username and places an "Automated" tag under the username on tweets. Twitter has said this is part of its efforts to promote "good bots." While the labels are only used when the bot creator voluntarily enables them, a 2020 developer policy update informed developers all API-based bot accounts must clearly indicate the account is automated and state who runs it. Accounts not in compliance could be subject to suspension or deletion.
Because they are not run by humans who need to sleep, Twitterbot accounts often have abnormally high post counts. These accounts might post hundreds or even thousands of tweets per day, every day. Because it is highly unlikely a human would post that much, an account showing that much activity is almost certainly automated.
In addition to posting and retweeting frequently, Twitterbots tend to post about the same topic or handful of topics nonstop, sometimes repeatedly duplicating posts. Again, this type of activity is uncommon with human-run accounts.
Twitterbots can sometimes be identified by suspicious profile pages that lack details a regular user would put in. If there is no bio or profile picture, or if the username is a random set of letters and numbers, the account could very well be a bot.
Bots, particularly those designed to post spam or disinformation, amplify other bots through retweets and quote links. If an account's post history contains nothing but those types of tweets, it is almost certainly a bot.
Botometer is a website operated by the Observatory on Social Media and the Indiana University Network Science Institute. The site analyzes a given Twitter account's activity, along with its friends and followers, and gives it a score based on comparing the account to tens of thousands of example accounts. The higher the score, the more likely the account is automated.
Here are some common Twitterbot accounts and what they are used for:
For those interested in creating their own Twitterbot, Twitter has a full developer tutorial with code examples. In brief, you will need to complete the following steps:
26 Jul 2022