How to Spot a Russian Bot by Daniel Costa-Roberts.
Spotting purported Russian bots on Twitter is a popular passtime for people unaware the “magic bullet” theory of communication has been proven to be false. One summary of “magic bullet” thinking:
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The media (magic gun) fired the message directly into audience head without their own knowledge. The message cause the instant reaction from the audience mind without any hesitation is called “Magic Bullet Theory”. The media (needle) injects the message into audience mind and it cause changes in audience behavior and psyche towards the message. Audience are passive and they can’t resist the media message is called “Hypodermic Needle Theory”.
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The “magic bullet” is an attractive theory for those selling advertising, but there is no scientific evidence to support it:
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The magic bullet theory is based on assumption of human nature and it was not based on any empirical findings from research. Few media scholars do not accepting this model because it’s based on assumption rather than any scientific evidence. In 1938, Lazarsfeld and Herta Herzog testified the hypodermic needle theory in a radio broadcast “The War of the Worlds” (a famous comic program) by insert a news bulletin which made a widespread reaction and panic among the American Mass audience. Through this investigation he found the media messages may affect or may not affect audience.“People’s Choice” a study conducted by Lazarsfeld in 1940 about Franklin D. Roosevelt election campaign and the effects of media messages. Through this study Lazarsfeld disproved the Magic Bullet theory and added audience are more influential in interpersonal than a media messages.
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Nevertheless, MotherJones and Costa-Roberts outline five steps to spot a Russian bot:
- Hyperactivity – more than 50 or 60 tweets per day
- Suspicious images – stock avatar
- URL shorterners – use indicates a bot
- Multiple languages – polyglot indicates a bot
- Unlikely popularity – for given # of followers
OK, so let’s test those steps against a known non-Russian bot that favors the US government, the New York Times.
- Hyperactivity – New York Times joined Twitter, 2 March 2007, 4173 days, 328,555 tweets as of this afternoon, so, 78.73 on average per day. That’s hyperactive.
- Suspicious images – NYT symbol
- URL shorterners – Always – signals bot. (displays nytimes.com but if you check the links, URL shorterner)
- Multiple languages – Nope.
- Unlikely popularity – In which direction? NYT has 41,665,676 followers and only 17,145 likes, or one like for every 2340 followers.
On balance I would say the New York Times isn’t a Russian bot, but given it’s like to follower ratio, it needs to work on its social media posts.
Maybe the New York Times needs to hire a Russian bot farm?