Twitter Will Now Allow ‘Good Bots’ to Identify Themselves
Twitter is launching a new tool that will allow users to identify themselves as bots by adding a label to their profile. This feature is intended to assist people in distinguishing between automated accounts and human-run accounts. Unfortunately, it isn’t designed to assist users in identifying “bad bots,” which are bots that impersonate individuals to spread misinformation or spam.
Key takeaways:
- During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in 2018, Twitter was asked if he believed users had a “right to know” whether they were speaking to a bot or a human on Twitter’s platform.
- Last year, the company stated that they would introduce additional features later to allow users to distinguish between human-run accounts and automated accounts.
- Over 500 Developer Accounts will be eligible to use Twitter’s new “Automated Account” designation, which distinguishes “good bots.”
Bots Skew Marketing Analytics and Cost Companies Millions of Dollars
According to a survey produced by a bot detection and mitigation service, bot activity on websites is skewing marketing data and losing firms millions of dollars each year.
According to Netacea’s analysis, the skewed analytics problem is as costly to organizations as click fraud.
Ad fraud costs firms US$42 billion every year, or 4% of sales, according to the analysis. The analysis was based on a survey of 440 organizations in different sectors: travel, entertainment, e-commerce, financial services, and telecom in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Key takeaways:
- According to the research, hackers use bots to buy things ahead of other consumers. They hijack accounts using stolen passwords, check the authenticity of stolen card details, and mass scrape material or prices.
- Even if they don’t do direct harm, bots can skew data, causing marketing teams to make poor decisions.
- Bot-affected analytics can obscure what actual consumers are doing, making it challenging to target real audiences.