Rise of the machinesâŚ
But⌠but thatâs all my followers!
I can think of a thousand different uses, but the most logical one is political bots for the US presidential election in 2016⌠but they could be for anything. The modern media places so much power and focus on whatâs trending on twitter that the power to occasionally manipulate that is actually worth something.
Have no fear, the A team is on the job.
Somebody needs a network of agents.
Maybe preparation for some botnet of sorts? The agents now being out there and gathering their history to not be Too New?
The hypothesis about manipulating what is trending sounds as the best bet to me, so far.
Itâs just Twitterâs way of keeping up their ânew signupsâ metrics.
Donât feed the vermin.
I reckon itâs a Russian AI powered by a beowulf cluster of lobster brains that wants political asylum.
Rogue AI practicing for Turing test?
Youâre sure this isnât just @OtherMichael 's latest project?
Actually, I was kinda serious. Following the theory that these have a âlife cycleâ, if people voluntarily follow these spam bot accounts out of curiosity, then it will look like theyâve got legit followers, and that would contribute to the problem. Just block them when you see them, and preferably report them as spam.
I wish! Seriously, I have an old note in my âideas for botsâ file that reads âCory Doctorowâs favorite Twitter feed. Hah!â
I have no idea what I had in mind 
I occasionally scan thru my newest followers and manually block the fake accounts. But high profile accounts with growing numbers of followers will have to automate this process.
The Bot Wars are coming.
The spam bots are getting more subtle. Iâm spending more time checking out new followers, trying to figure out if theyâre real or not.
In general, I tend to get legit new followers immediately after I state a strong opinion in a heated discussion. If I havenât tweeted anything interesting lately and get a new follower, it almost always looks like a spam bot to me.
Could they be an evolving lifeform?
They have at least one plausible use: really high-quality astroturf. What @jeff_baird said, but not limited to the presidential election. Sock puppets have many many uses.
In the science fiction novel âA Deepness in the Skyâ, by Vernor Vinge, (copyright 1999) these kinds of social media bots are used to cover the activities of outer-space aliens by overwhelming the reports of genuinely observed alien activity with many bullshit reports of weirdness. Just sayinââŚ
AndâŚ
One or more of the leaks over the past few years indicated âfive eyesâ were creating social media bot swarms for propaganda purposes. These intel agencies also would consider âsleeper agentâ style attacks systems as a trustworthy strategy to rely on. As it works so powerfully in physical intelligence realms.
The indication of when it started sounds exact, so that likely means this idea came to mind. Encryption, Cameron⌠GCHQ.
(Obvious caveat, probably quite a number of tweets have been on such subjects. But how frequent on a subject which would be near and dear to GCHQâs heart?)
My limited understanding of their âend gameâ is to have a system which can dynamically push âadversarial propagandaâ away, and counter it with disinformation. Dynamic, as in, whatever cause they feel a need to push, when they feel a need to push it.
My understanding was such technology was intended to target terrorists, targeting a major privacy rights advocate is disturbing. Why would they stop there?
Reminds me of when the US ran operations against peaceful civil rights activists. Clear crossing of the line.
A good scandal in the making, if this is the case. Which, I have some confidence it is.
