Thanks for the answers. And hold on —

90% of your followers are bots?

Badri Sunderarajan
Aug 22, 2017 · 2 min read

That’s ridiculous! I mean, even 10% would be annoying, but 90% means something’s seriously wrong.

I’m not so worried about security concerns: in the end, they’re just accounts, so they can only follow and comment like normal accounts do. The problem lies more in the spam factor. If there are so many bots hanging around, they could seriously bring down the quality of conversation. As well as influence popularity and control which posts come to the top.

If they work in coordination, the bots could decide what people read on the Medium homepage.

Okay, forget what I said about ‘spam’. This is much more than just spam. I agree that Medium should do something about this. Not that the bots are doing much harm yet, but the point is that they can do harm. And when they start, it’s a good idea to be prepared.

Yes, the bot followers giving people an ego boost would be a problem. It would be in everyone’s best interest to get rid of the bots, so people don’t get recommends unless their articles are actually that good. People with bot-followers have an unfair advantage over people who don’t. Unfortunately, what’s bad for the community is good, on the small scale, to each individual person benefitting from bot-followers.

Medium would benefit from the traffic too. But that’s only till the traffic starts to turn against them. Your metaphor of ‘troops massing for an attack’ is an apt one. These bots may be harmless now, but they can cause a lot of damage if they want to. Even if these bots don’t, the possibility remains that someone else could launch new bots to attack the network.

Maybe I should point out that Medium does have rudimentary measures for blocking bots. If a profile has an unusually high level of activity, or is recommending too many spam-type posts, then it gets flagged—or at least it did in the case of SF Ali, whom they erroneously marked as a bot.

Just out of curiosity, how do you identify the bots? What I mean is, is there any typical ‘bot’ behaviour that distinguishes them from normal people? How often do they act? Are their comments sensible? Do they have profile-pictures?

What do bots do?

The answers would help to create an automated system that finds and block bots. More importantly, they’ll help me identify them.

I have a suspicion that they’re following me, too.

)
Badri Sunderarajan

Written by

Books reader, Websites coder, Drawings maker. Things writer. Occasional astronomer. Alleged economist. Editor@Snipette.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade