Social Roughly half the Twitter accounts pushing to 'reopen America' are bots, researchers found

[luckyshot]

A majority of Americans are OK with cautious reopening

I think a slow, cautious re-opening is definitely in line with American opinion.

That's not what these Twitter bot accounts are advocating for, though. They are advocating for full, immediate re-opening without any additional precautionary measures... as if the caronovirus is just a media hoax. Often times that is the very language they use.

And President Dump adds fuel to the fire when he gets on the boob tube and says things like "all churches need to be open by this weekend" or "the virus is just going to go away whether or not we get a vaccine." And, of course, he and his goons refuse to wear masks or respect social distancing on camera. All of this is done by design to send the signal that we need to re-open FASTER than is cautious... because, of course, all he cares about is the timing and pace of the economic recovery because that's all he sees affecting his election chances.

Ironically, if he wasn't a fucking moron, if he was even a HALF-WAY competent public official, he could have had his re-election all but sewn up right now simply by not fucking the pooch on the carnivorous response. Just look at the approval ratings of governors who have acted cautiously... most of them are in the mid 60%'s or higher. Around the world almost all national leaders have seen their approval go up-- just by displaying basic sense, decency, disciplne and empathy in a time of crisis.

But, of course, Asshole is incapable of that.

Trump actually had a chance to break through and win over some of his skeptics, but instead he's been an erratic, undisciplined, no-forethought, say-something-different-every-day clown show... and now he's left with no play except to double-down on his MAGA idiot base and fan their conspiracy theories.

Truly pathetic.

 

[Madmick]

I think a slow, cautious re-opening is definitely in line with American opinion.

That's not what these Twitter bot accounts are advocating for, though. They are advocating for full, immediate re-opening without any additional precautionary measures... as if the caronovirus is just a media hoax. Often times that is the very language they use.

And President Dump adds fuel to the fire when he gets on the boob tube and says things like "all churches need to be open by this weekend" or "the virus is just going to go away whether or not we get a vaccine." And, of course, he and his goons refuse to wear masks or respect social distancing on camera. All of this is done by design to send the signal that we need to re-open FASTER than is cautious... because, of course, all he cares about is the timing and pace of the economic recovery because that's all he sees affecting his election chances.

Ironically, if he wasn't a fucking moron, if he was even a HALF-WAY competent public official, he could have had his re-election all but sewn up right now simply by not fucking the pooch on the carnivorous response. Just look at the approval ratings of governors who have acted cautiously... most of them are in the mid 60%'s or higher. Around the world almost all national leaders have seen their approval go up-- just by displaying basic sense, decency, disciplne and empathy in a time of crisis.

But, of course, Asshole is incapable of that.

Trump actually had a chance to break through and win over some of his skeptics, but instead he's been an erratic, undisciplined, no-forethought, say-something-different-every-day clown show... and now he's left with no play except to double-down on his MAGA idiot base and fan their conspiracy theories.

Truly pathetic.

Over a quarter of Americans are for that kind of re-opening. That's more than 80 million people. It's not exactly unpopular. What percent of all Twitter accounts posting about the pandemic do these re-opening advocates represent?

Because, you know, I never once saw a story about how all the Berniebots on Twitter were actually bots, and Bernie's popularity on Twitter is radically disproportionate to his actual popularity in real polls or votes. Most of us accept that this derived from the fact Twitter trends younger, and especially that it is popular with poorer or unemployed people who do nothing but regurgitate their thoughts in 140 characters or less....every day, all day. I never saw Twitter go out of their way to publish reports analyzing the source activity of all those cheerleaders who seemingly exist only on the internet.

I guess all those flowers are annoyed because they feel their echo chamber is being encroached upon. I delight in their discomfort. Because it's silly to preoccupy oneself with this. It clearly isn't driving policy, and hasn't been since this got rolling.

 

[chardog]

Nearly half of all covid19 posts are bots anyhow https://www.fastcompany.com/9050855...ssages-are-likely-bots-study-says?partner=rss

so some context would help

 

[chardog]

What percentage of calls to stay at home are bots? I'd muster it's a similar number. Bots are loyal to money, not party.

As far as daily testing, if you really think people are willing to get a rod shoved to the back of their brain through their nose on a daily basis, you got another thing coming.

Nobody question the inconvenient truts

 

[Cowboy From Hell]

Fuck Twitter. It doesn't represent what society truly thinks and if you let a social media platform influence your opinion, then you have no mind of your own.

 

[Broken arrow]

I think TS is actually referring to black lives matter as being an engineered protest

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

What percentage of calls to stay at home are bots? I'd muster it's a similar number. Bots are loyal to money, not party.

As far as daily testing, if you really think people are willing to get a rod shoved to the back of their brain through their nose on a daily basis, you got another thing coming.

Yes, the actual study says that all of the conversation about COVID related topics is driven by bots. The bots dominating the calls to reopen the US is a subset of a larger phenomenon. But the article was framed in such a way as to emphasize only the part of a broader phenomenon the researchers studied.

Consider these numbers: "To analyze bot activity around the pandemic, CMU researchers since January have collected more than 200 million tweets discussing coronavirus or COVID-19. Of the top 50 influential retweeters, 82% are bots, they found. Of the top 1,000 retweeters, 62% are bots." Now note that it says "are bots" rather than might be bots. Because they separately categorize accounts that are definitely bots and those that might be bots or human accounts assisted by bots. The amount of accounts calling for reopening that are bots is 34% according to this study.

So if 34% of people calling for reopening are definitely bots, that's a high number and shouldn't be ignored. But it's also worth noting that 34% is a low figure when considering Coronavirus related tweet overall. That subset of the corona virus discussion seems less bot driven than other sub topics.

 

[luckyshot]

Over a quarter of Americans are for that kind of re-opening. That's more than 80 million people. It's not exactly unpopular. What percent of all Twitter accounts posting about the pandemic do these re-opening advocates represent?

Because, you know, I never once saw a story about how all the Berniebots on Twitter were actually bots, and Bernie's popularity on Twitter is radically disproportionate to his actual popularity in real polls or votes. Most of us accept that this derived from the fact Twitter trends younger, and especially that it is popular with poorer or unemployed people who do nothing but regurgitate their thoughts in 140 characters or less....every day, all day. I never saw Twitter go out of their way to publish reports analyzing the source activity of all those cheerleaders who seemingly exist only on the internet.

I guess all those flowers are annoyed because they feel their echo chamber is being encroached upon. I delight in their discomfort. Because it's silly to preoccupy oneself with this. It clearly isn't driving policy, and hasn't been since this got rolling.

Oh gee, a quarter of the population.

It’s a landslide!

Appealing exclusively to these people certainly explains why Trump— virtually alone among world leaders— has seen his popularity erode during the epidemic.

As to your second argument, well, once you figure out what it is, let me know. Are you saying a you actually think a large percentage of Bernie supporters are bots? Or are you just blathering?

I think Bernie is more popular on Twitter than at the polls because his supporters are disproportionately passionate and vocal. Middle-of-the-roaders don’t typically spend a lot of time broadcasting their milquetoast-ness on Twitter. That doesn’t take brain surgery to understand.

 

[Halge]

Exactly all twitter accounts belong to morons.

 

[MilesAbove]

This shouldn't be a surprise. Bots and influencers constantly do this to both sides.

 

[Madmick]

As to your second argument, well, once you figure out what it is, let me know. Are you saying a you actually think a large percentage of Bernie supporters are bots? Or are you just blathering?

I think Bernie is more popular on Twitter than at the polls because his supporters are disproportionately passionate and vocal. Middle-of-the-roaders don’t typically spend a lot of time broadcasting their milquetoast-ness on Twitter. That doesn’t take brain surgery to understand.

I think Bernie enjoyed disproportionate support on Twitter because his supporters are mostly vacuous Millennials who are only industrious enough to move their fingers on their phones. Obviously they're not passionate because they can't even be bothered to show up and vote. Anything that takes more effort than complaining about how they don't have enough money is apparently too hard. But onto the meat, here...

Oh gee, a quarter of the population.

It’s a landslide!

Appealing exclusively to these people certainly explains why Trump— virtually alone among world leaders— has seen his popularity erode during the epidemic.

Apparently the reason for the citation of this source transcends your capability to comprehend. I tried to offer you hints.

Twitter isn't driving policy. Lockdown measures are still in place across the vast majority of the country. Furthermore, Twitter isn't driving belief. That's apparent in the very fact that only a quarter of those support a less cautious reopening. On the other hand, 80m or so people isn't a small number of people. There's going to be a lot of support on Twitter that is valid. Your report doesn't seem to qualify the character of pro-reopening support. In fact, a majority of the country supports a cautious reopening.

So why are leftists like yourself getting worked up?

Bottom line: this isn't important, and it isn't worth attention. If you're smart, the real lesson one should have learned over the past half decade has been that one shouldn't make conclusions about popular support based on what's trending on internet platforms, or a perceived preponderance of support gleaned thereof. If someone can be influenced by the stitched copy/pasted or randomly generated arguments of a bot, then perhaps one should consider this person was going to be impressed by that argument regardless of the source.

What this really reveals about people who are threatened by the headline, here, is how desperately they cling to conformist thought, and desire to wield control over political policy through herd thinking. This is quite a popular tactic on the left, these days. They seek to shame, stigmatize, and ostracize those who resist their opinions. It's why free speech is being eroded in Europe, and comedians are getting thrown fined and threatened with jail time for teaching their pet pugs the Nazi salute to troll their girlfriends. A fantastic video on this terrifying, emerging reality I learned of here on Sherdog starring Mr. Bean himself: