WASHINGTON (TIP): Twitter “bots” may help drive social movements the world over, say scientists who suggest that automated tweets can be used to make an issue trend, grab public attention and trigger policy change.

Bots–short for robots–are simple computer programmes designed to carry out automated tasks. In internet terms, bots are non-human actors that often try to go undetected.

Although we have known about Twitter bots for years, the new research marks the first time that bots’ social clout was studied in the field of information systems and management. “When a topic trends on Twitter, chances are a lot of central or very well-connected accounts are tweeting about it and perhaps shaping how others react. We found that some of these central accounts are actually bots,” said Carolina Salge, a PhD student at University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business in the US.

“Once enough accounts are tweeting about the same thing, that creates buzz, and organisations really respond to buzz,” said Salge. Due to the increasing prevalence and sophistication of bots, their invisible influence may be affecting news reports and social media research, said Elena Karahanna, professor at Terry College of Business.

“Bots amplify the message. They amplify how many people the message reaches and how fast it reaches them,” said Karahanna. “They spread the word very, very quickly.

That’s one reason they can become central actors in these networks,” she said. While bots often tried to pass as humans online, their purposes were not always nefarious, Salge said.

Source: PTI