The word ‘bot’ is increasingly being used as an insult on social media

Calling somebody a bot on social media as soon as meant you suspected they have been really a bit of software program, however now the usage of the word is shifting to turn into an insult to somebody you recognize is human, say researchers.

Many efforts to detect social media bots use algorithms to attempt to determine patterns of behaviour which can be extra widespread in automated accounts managed by computer systems, the normal that means of a bot, however their accuracy is questionable.

“Most recent research really focuses on the detection of social bots, which is problematic in itself because we have this ground truth problem,” says Dennis Assenmacher at Leibniz Institute for Social Sciences in Cologne, Germany, that means we don’t know if detections are correct.

To examine, Assenmacher and his colleagues checked out how customers understand what is a bot or not. They did so by taking a look at how the word “bot” was used on Twitter between 2007 and December 2022 (the social community modified its identify to X in 2023, following its buy by Elon Musk), analysing the phrases that appeared subsequent to it in additional than 22 million English-language tweets.

The staff discovered that earlier than 2017, the word was often deployed alongside allegations of automated behaviour of the kind that may historically match the definition of a bot, such as “software”, “script” or “machine”. After that date, the use shifted.

“Now, the accusations have become more like an insult, dehumanising people, insulting them, and using this as a technique to deny their intelligence and deny their right to participate in a conversation,” says Assenmacher.

While the reason for the shift is unclear, Assenmacher says it may very well be political in nature. The staff checked out high-profile accounts adopted by every Twitter consumer, such as these of politicians and journalists, to categorise customers as left or right-leaning. It turned out that left-leaning customers have been extra more likely to accuse others of being bots, and people who have been accused have been extra more likely to be right-leaning.

“A potential explanation might be that media frequently reported about right-wing bot networks influencing major events like the [2016] US election,” says Assenmacher. “However, this is just speculation and would need confirmation.”