Are Social Media Bots Distorting Our Conversations?
News Has Changed
It used to be that all Americans got their news from about 2–3 different sources. Thanks in large part to the advancement of technology and social media, people can choose to listen and talk to who they want to. Social media can do a lot of good by connecting the voiceless, but I think there are a lot of negative attributes of social media that have yet to be fully explored or realized. For instance, the bots market is unconquered territory.
A bot is a software application that runs automated tasks over the Internet. Bots, powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), are used in a variety applications from detecting cybersecurity threats to text-based messaging. It appears bots have also played a role in the Presidential election. You and many others could have been unknowingly chatting with bots on Twitter. More than 20% of tweets about the elections were from bots. There were 400,000 AI infused bots swaying discourse and possibly determining who you voted for.
“Findings suggest that the presence of social media bots can indeed negatively affect democratic political discussion rather than improving it, which in turn can potentially alter public opinion and endanger the integrity of the Presidential election.” — Bessi and Ferrara, researchers at the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute
Twitter isn’t the only social network accused of distorting the Presidential election online discussion. Some people are blaming Facebook’s news feed algorithm for Donald Trump’s surprising victory. A recent Pew Study found 63 percent of American adults use Facebook as their primary news source. Social media allows you to follow who you like, and as a result, you only follow people with similar worldviews.
“Ultimately, democracy works only if we citizens are capable of thinking beyond our narrow self-interest. But to do so, we need a shared view of the world we cohabit. We need to come into contact with other people’s lives and needs and desires. The filter bubble pushes us in the opposite direction — it creates the impression that our narrow self-interest is all that exists. And while this is great for getting people to shop online, it’s not great for getting people to make better decisions together.” — Eli Pariser and his 2011 best seller, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You
The way news is gathered has changed. Newspapers aren’t investing in investigative reporters. Local news stations now take national wire stories/packages and run them instead of having local political reporters. Dallas Mavs Owner and Shark Tank judge, Mark Cuban, revoked ESPN press credentials claiming that their articles are written by computers.
“This is the problem with America today, the technology that was supposed to bring us together actually isolated us into echo chambers and drove us further apart.” — Trent Lapinski
Two nights ago many became acutely aware that we have two America’s that don’t know each other. This didn’t become apparent until after the election. We, as a people, have been heads down in our own social bubbles online. Conversations are becoming increasingly polarized due to automated articles, tweets, shares, algorithms and bots. We have to have a conversation on AI, as it becomes more ubiquitous, because the chasm of communication will only widen unless there is a way for media and bots to coexist.
It’ll be interesting to see if people, with a non-mainstream worldview, can create an online dialogue with AI in a way that influences human perceptions of the world rather than further divide us.
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