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this is a long-standing meme: any behaviour you don’t understand on the internet must be some sort of sophisticated operation by a nefarious third-party network
by phphphphp 4y ago
this is a long-standing meme: any behaviour you don’t understand on the internet must be some sort of sophisticated operation by a nefarious third-party network.
The question you should always start with is why and if you can’t come up with a why then you should start from a more neutral position on the behaviour.
Spam isn’t free to engage in, especially on platforms like Facebook, and spam is rarely an irrational money-losing act, it’s just profit generation on the wrong side of our view of what is ethical. Why would someone spend money to unleash chat-bots on a Facebook group to discuss a piece of furniture?
If you can’t explain why, your theory is probably wrong. I would be absolutely shocked if it’s anything more than just some real people who love furniture and use a localised phrase that you don’t recognise.
- pugworthy 4y agoYou see the same kind of thing in some online multiplayer games. Players acting differently are seen as bots. Same for players who low skill or go AFK. That said an interesting advance on real game bots would be ones which use AI to chat and respond to other players actions or messages.
- userabchn 4y agoBut I can explain why: they need to blend-in to build trust with other group participants and so become more persuasive when they are trying to influence, and also to avoid bot detection. The influence might also be much more subtle than talking about political topics, such as just being continuously negative or argumentative to bring down the moods of the targeted people.