August 14, 2020 T. Calhoun, Caltak Enterprises
We all have heard of "bots" trolling social media, but do we really know what they are? Social Bots are programs (sometimes humans), that are programmed specifically (compensated if they are human) to deliver messages, advocate ideas, create fake (catfish) accounts, follow others, and increase their following to multiply their user base.
How do we spot one? Well it's complicated if you aren't looking to spot one, because they interact as if they are human (some actually are) and as if they are genuinely interested and concerned in the messages that they are spreading (none of them are). But when you are paying attention, they are actually quite easy to spot.
After many months of research, below is a compiled list of general things to look for when you think you have been fooled by a social bot:
-They usually don't have many profile pics or authentic pics of their own.
-Their posts sometimes show up on your feed even though you are not following them (but they may be following you or a family member).
-They will usually have nothing but political and/or racially charged, controversial posts that appear to be prewritten, none with a "human-like" feel, no emotion or be overly emotional specifically to charge people up. All of these posts will be public.
-They may post nothing but memes or shares. All of these posts will be public.
-They may be following your friends or family members but not actually be FB friends with any of them.
-They may pose (catfish) as a friend or family member but not be responsive to any family member post reactions, tags, comments, or msgs. They may not appear to know any family members.
-Their profile may show that they only like political, racial, religious, or public speaker type pages. Nothing else.
-They may have the same small "clique" of Facebook friends that each share the same political posts that are liked by thousands of people on each of their pages.
-They may have hundreds or thousands of followers on their personal page, but very little Facebook friends.
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***BIG*** They usually have 2 types of posts immediately before the start of their constant flow of political and racially inspired posts: a page creation post, and a profile picture change post.
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***BIG*** They may not have any posts prior to the year 2018.
That's a quick way to spot a bot. When you encounter one (if the majority of the above apply plus one of the last two
***BIG*** ones), it's highly recommended to block them. They may be collecting info and data about you to use for malicious purposes. You can also report the profile, however there is no intelligent option to report "bots" on Facebook, so Facebook does not generally detect that their profile is in fact a bot, and will most likely not delete it, and instead will tell you that the profile does not break any of their community standards (sigh, long sentence!).
If the "bot-like" profile is a personal friend or family member and you are unsure, contact them outside of social media (via phone, text, or email) and verify that they actually created the profile.
Good luck on spotting a bot!
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