How bots rule Twitter: two-thirds of tweets posted by automated accounts, study finds
Study that analysed 1.2 million tweets last year also found bots were responsible for 90 per cent of all tweeted links to popular porn sites
There are a lot of bots out there on Twitter. That’s the message from a new study by the Pew Research Centre in the United States, which found that two-thirds of tweets that link to digital content are generated by bots – accounts powered by automated software, not real tweeters.
Researchers analysed 1.2 million tweets from July to September last year, most of which linked to more than 2,300 popular websites devoted to sports, celebrities, news, business and sites created by organisations.
Two-thirds of those tweets were posted or shared by bots, while 89 per cent of links that led to aggregation sites that compile online stories were posted by bots, the study says.
The findings suggest that bots “play a prominent and pervasive role in the social media environment”, said Aaron Smith, associate research director at Pew. The study used a “Botometre” developed at the University of Southern California and Indiana University to analyse links and determine if tweets were posted by an automated account.