Social Media Bots and Anonymous Sources

Social media has revolutionized the way we consume news. However, these platforms aren’t perfect. Unethical use of anonymous sources and bots has led to an increase of fake news online. The relationship between these two aspects blurs the lines of honest news to the public and is difficult to spot.

Today, we’re used to seeing anonymous sources paired with news articles. Many times, sources prefer to remain anonymous in order to protect themselves in concerning situations while also providing crucial information to the media.

Many outlets and organizations even reach out to the public to obtain information with the promise of anonymity in return.

However, unethical use of such sources may do more harm than good and can lead to mistrust amongst the public. At the end of the day, whether these stories and sources are to be deemed credible is up to consumers.

As technology progressed throughout the years, a new kind of anonymous has come to social media — bots. Bots look and act as if they’re human online, but are actually the creation of computer programming by a single unknown source. In many regards, online bots can be used for good as they can help companies automate their messaging online or respond to queries without using up human resources.

Implementation of online bots has become increasingly prevalent in the realm of online political discourse as of recent years. Bots have the ability to amplify political debate, division, and sway influence, particularly by having their artificial messages reposted and spreading throughout the online ecosystem.

Bots Are Destroying Political Discourse As We Know It

Anonymous sources and bots both have the capacity to be used for the benefit of the public on social media platforms. Organizations who use these capabilities in unethical ways should be exposed by the public or their host social media platform in order to stop the spread of these particular uses. As a rule of thumb, be skeptical and ask questions or you might end up diving head first into a conspiracy theory without you even knowing it.