Social media has become a tool of manipulation. AI bots and paid political operatives use social media as a tool to craft society, every day.
AI bots are a software application designed to scan social media for key words and then, by imitating a person, make a response or series of responses. By making consistent and regular messages acting like a real person, or a series of real people, the bots can affect public opinion.
In the past, the AI bots were relatively unsophisticated, generating grammatically incorrect social media messages. With the advancement of language models, AI bots are becoming more and more sophisticated, and are able to create persuasive disinformation messages in our social media.
AI bots leave some telltale signs.
A social media profile without a profile picture can be an indication of a bot. If the suspected bot has a profile picture, one can visit Google Images. By copying the suspected profile picture to the Google Images search page, Google will show the original source of the image.
Bots will usually have stock pictures or repeat images, used for the several identities used by the program.
Another tool in detecting bots are the low follower counts. Bots are designed to send out messages. They are created as a tool for outgoing communications. Since the bots are not designed for interaction, few followers are an indication of a bot.
High privacy settings in the social media program are also evidence of a bot. Ensuring that no one can see the profile settings or background information allows the bot to disguise its identity.
Finally, when looking for bots, look for timing, volume or subject of the posts. If a comment is made, consistently, shortly after a post is made, it is an indication the post was made by a web crawling bot.
The volume of the posts is important. If an impossibly high volume of posts or comments appear, one can suspect a bot is at work.
The Conversation, in its article Election Disinformation: How AI-powered bots work and how you can protect yourself from their influence describes an account with no profile pictures called True Trumpers, which had 4423 posts including a series of entirely fabricated stories. The bot was tracked to an Eastern European country.
AI Bots are a force multiplier, which allows one single individual to use the miracle of modern computing to create what appears to be a widespread message. These bots are used to manipulate us, and we should be on our guard for them.
On the other hand, paid social media operatives are real people who make their living trying to influence our opinions. Oftentimes, they share the same telltale characteristics with AI bots, including stock photos, scant profile information, few followers and high privacy settings.
In addition, one can detect the paid political operative due to their patterned postings and predictable narratives. The operative will consistently respond to items critical to their message, either with a factual response, or deflection techniques aimed to change the conversation.
Their responses will follow a pattern and be predictable. The operative will either be consistently critical or consistently supportive of a particular person or topic. Oftentimes, they will possess information not available to the public at large.
These operatives, like the bots, have high activities at strategic times, and are often among the first few people to comment after a story is published.
Another indicator is the use of trendy buzzwords that have likely been screened in a focus group somewhere. We all recognize the trendy words which seem to appear every election season. Those words, which are a product of intense polling and study, are used like frosting on a cake, to enhance the message and its spread.
If engaged in a chat, the comments made by professionals are scripted and predictable. The words are carefully crafted and on message.
Their job is to persuade you to their point of view, and their messaging is designed solely to accomplish that task.
While these symptoms indicate bots or professionals, they are not foolproof. Social media is full of cowardly trolls who set up fake profiles and comment, seemingly anonymously, to say what they don’t have the courage to say in person.
My advice for dealing with trolls is not to feed them. Ignore their social media posts.
We need to be aware of those who are trying to manipulate us through social media.
In a world where we have lots of things to avoid, these folks have just added to our burden.
Tom Lubnau served in the Wyoming Legislature from 2005 - 2015 and is a former Speaker of the House.
He can be reached at: YourInputAppreciated@gmail.com
