Twitter Bots

INTRODUCTION

Twitter bots, also known as zombies, are automated Twitter accounts controlled by bot software. While they are programmed to perform tasks that resemble those of everyday Twitter users — such as liking tweets and following other users — their purpose is to tweet and retweet content for specific goals on a large scale.

WHAT ARE TWITTER BOTS ?

A Twitter bot is a type of bot software that controls a Twitter account via the Twitter API. The bot software may autonomously perform actions such as tweeting, re-tweeting, liking, following, unfollowing, or direct messaging other accounts.

USES OF TWITTER BOTS

The automation of Twitter accounts is governed by a set of automation rules that outline proper and improper uses of automation. Proper usage includes broadcasting helpful information, automatically generating interesting or creative content, and automatically replying to users via direct message. Improper usage includes circumventing API rate limits, violating user privacy, spamming etc.

FEATURES OF THE TWITTER BOTS

It is sometimes desirable to identify when a Twitter account is controlled by a bot.In a 2012 paper, Chu et al. propose the following criteria that indicate that an account may be a bot (they were designing an automated system):

Periodic and regular timing" of tweets.

Whether the tweet content contains known spam.

The ratio of tweets from mobile versus desktop, as compared to an average human Twitter users.

Research shows that humans can view Twitter bots as a credible source of information.

ADVANTAGES OF THE TWITTER BOTS

Chatbots can do a lot and they can do it instantly and automatically. They can sell and process orders, track order information, and answer basic customer service questions. On Twitter, they can even take over some of your actual social media marketing. You can set them loose instead of keeping them confined to your DMs.
Some of these bots are capable of learning based on the content they process and formulate replies to users tweeting at them.

EXAMPLES OF TWITTER BOTS

@tinycarebot promotes simple self care actions to its followers, such as remembering to look up from your screens, taking a break to go outside, and drink more water. It will also send a self care suggestion if you tweet directly at it.
@GNUTIEZ keeps track of the headlines and teasers of the major German online newspapers and tweets all changes made after an article is published.
@HaiQuBot tweets short found poems, every 30 minutes, about the world under COVID-19 quarantine.