• Home
  • Anti-Corruption
  • Fact-Check
  • Economy
  • National
    • Government
  • Security
  • Features
  • State
  • Event
    • PR Nigeria Award
  • E-Paper
Search
  • Home
  • About
  • Adverts
  • Contact
Sign in
Welcome! Log into your account
Forgot your password? Get help
Password recovery
Recover your password
A password will be e-mailed to you.
PRNIGERIA PRNigeria News
PRNIGERIA PRNIGERIA
  • Home
  • Anti-Corruption
    • Chinese nationals jailed in Lagos

      Court Jails Nine Chinese Nationals for Cybercrime in Lagos

      ASUU

      Tackle Corruption, Institutional Decay – ASUU Charges FG

      EFCC Arraigns Bauchi Accountant General Over N8bn Fraud as Court Sentences…

      PRNigeria logo fearured image

      EFCC Arraigns Ex-Convict, Other for Naira Abuse in Lagos

      EFCC Arrests 37 Suspected Internet Fraudsters in Ilorin

  • Fact-Check
  • Economy
    • Ibrahim Yahaya Dandakata of Arewa Economic Forum AEF

      AEF Slams CBN’s New BDC Policy, Cites Threat to Northern Economy…

      Google Search Tech Digest

      7 Smart Google Search Tips That Will Save You Hours By…

      U.S. VISA

      REVEALED: Why US Reduced Visa Validity for Nigerians to 3 Months…

      Comptroller General Nigerian Customs Bashir Adewale

      Nigeria Customs Takes Anti-Money Laundering Fight to the Skies

      Comptroller General Nigerian Customs Bashir Adewale

      Nigeria Customs, ICPC and the Audit of Conscience

  • National
    • Customs boss, CGC Bashir Adewale Adeniyi with NAFDAC DG Professor Moji Adeyeye

      Customs Hands Over 99.2bn Worth of Illicit Pharmaceutical Products to NAFDAC

      President Muhammadu Buhari

      Rat Story Was a Smokescreen to Divert Attention from Buhari’s Health…

      Nigerian Banks

      Nigeria’s Second Chance at a Global Cashless Future By Fatimah Yusuf…

      Air Chief Rallies New Intelligence Officers for Proactive Security Response

      Customs boss, CGC Bashir Adewale Adeniyi with NAFDAC DG Professor Moji Adeyeye

      Customs, NAFDAC Activate MoU to Fight Substandard Products By Abdullah Maiwada

    • Government
      • Mohammed Idris

        Local Government Autonomy Not Negotiable — FG Declares

        NELFUND

        NELFUND Resumes Monthly Upkeep Payments, Credits Over 3,600 Students

        Seal of the Nigerian Senate

        NNPCL Must Account for ‘Unreconciled’ N210tr in Financial Statements – Senate…

        Senator Kashim Shettima

        Presidency Debunks Misleading Reports on VP Shettima’s Remarks at Book Launch

        Shamsedeen Babatunde Ogunjimi

        OAGF Explains Delay in June Salaries for Some Civil Servants

  • Security
    • Defence Minister Abubakar Badaru

      Nigeria’s Future Rests on Smart Defence Management — Badaru to Military…

      Customs boss, CGC Bashir Adewale Adeniyi with NAFDAC DG Professor Moji Adeyeye

      Customs Hands Over 99.2bn Worth of Illicit Pharmaceutical Products to NAFDAC

      Troops Intercept 3 Gunrunners, Seize Weapons, Cash in Kaduna

      Military Troops

      Troops Bust IPOB/ESN Logistics Network, Arrest Informants in Southeast — DHQ

      Soludo and Radda’s Candid Confessions on Homegrown Terror By Tahir Ahmad

  • Features
    • Soludo and Radda’s Candid Confessions on Homegrown Terror By Tahir Ahmad

      Nigerian Banks

      Nigeria’s Second Chance at a Global Cashless Future By Fatimah Yusuf…

      Customs boss, CGC Bashir Adewale Adeniyi with NAFDAC DG Professor Moji Adeyeye

      Customs, NAFDAC Activate MoU to Fight Substandard Products By Abdullah Maiwada

      Crowned Prince Salman of Saudi Arabia

      Rebranding Royalty: Saudi Arabia’s Response to Iran’s Fall By Baba El-Yakubu

      Kanam Ambush: The Danger of Embarking on an Unauthorized Mission By…

  • State
    • Troops Intercept 3 Gunrunners, Seize Weapons, Cash in Kaduna

      Soludo and Radda’s Candid Confessions on Homegrown Terror By Tahir Ahmad

      Police repatriates Chinese Fugitive wanted for Tax fraud

      Police Arrest, Repatriate Chinese Fugitive Wanted for Tax Fraud

      court Judiciary

      Murder of Wedding Guests: Plateau Court Remands 20 Suspects

      Army Vows to Tackle Oil Theft, Restore Nigeria’s 2mbpd Output

  • Event
    • Asiwaju Adegboyega Solomon Awomolo

      47 Years of Excellence: Honoring Asiwaju Awomolo, SAN

      NCoS inmates

      58 Inmates in Kano Sit for 2025 NECO Exams, Thanks to…

      Troops of the Nigerian Army giving a salute

      162nd Anniversary: Tinubu Salutes Nigerian Army, Hails Troops as Guardians of…

      President & Chairman of Governing Council, Dr. Ike Neliaku

      NIPR Lauds Nigerian PR Firms for Outstanding Performances at 2025 SABRE…

      SCN NGO signs partnership with PRNIGERIA

      SCN NGO Seals Partnership with PRNigeria to Amplify its Humanitarian Projects

    • PR Nigeria Award
  • E-Paper

    Do You Know There Are Billions of Social Media Bots Designed to Mimic Humans? Here’s How to Spot Them

    By
    Mohammad Dahiru Lawal
    -
    August 25, 2021

    Do You Know There Are Billions of Social Media Bots Designed to Mimic Humans? Here’s How to Spot Them

    “Bots” — automated social media accounts which pose as real people — have a huge presence on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. They number in the billions. 

    Most fake social media accounts are “bots,” created by automated programs to post certain kinds of information as part of an effort to manipulate social conversations. Sophisticated actors can create millions of accounts using the same program.

    These bots can seriously distort debate, especially when they work together. They can be used to make a phrase or hashtag trend and they can be used to amplify or attack a message or article and even harass other users.

    Recently, social media giant, Facebook, claims it disabled a staggering figure of more than three billion fake accounts over a six-month period. 

    One study by researchers at the University of Southern California analyzed US election-related tweets sent in September and October 2016 and found that 1 in 5 were sent by a bot. The Pew Research Center concluded in a 2018 study that accounts suspected of being bots are responsible for as many as two-thirds of all tweets that link to popular websites.

    In the social media context, these autonomous programs can run accounts to spread content without human involvement. Many are harmless, tweeting out random poems or pet photos. But others are up to no good and are designed to resemble actual users.

    Bots “don’t just manipulate the conversation, they build groups and bridge groups,” said Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist Kathleen Carley, who has researched social media bots.

    “They can make people in one group believe they think the same thing as people in another group, and in doing so they build echo chambers.”

    In the run up to the 2023 general election, it has already become incumbent on social media users to acquaint themselves with tips and tricks of social media bots as misinformation and disinformation appear in political ads or social media posts. They can include fake news stories or doctored videos among wider and far reaching public interest implications. 

    Many bots are relatively easy to spot by eyeball, without access to specialized software or commercial analytical tools. This article sets out a dozen of the clues, which can be found useful in exposing fake accounts.

     

    Read Also:

    • Local Government Autonomy Not Negotiable — FG Declares
    • Nigeria’s Future Rests on Smart Defence Management — Badaru to Military Leaders
    • Customs Hands Over 99.2bn Worth of Illicit Pharmaceutical Products to NAFDAC
    • Activity: The most obvious indicator that an account is automated is its activity. This can readily be calculated by looking at its profile page and dividing the number of posts by the number of days it has been active. The benchmark for suspicious activity varies. The Oxford Internet Institute’s Computational Propaganda team, views an average of more than 50 posts a day as suspicious; this is a widely recognized and applied benchmark, but may be on the low side.
    • Anonymity: A second key indicator is the degree of anonymity an account shows. In general, the less personal information it gives, the more likely it is to be a bot.
    • Amplification: The third key indicator is amplification. One main role of bots is to boost the signal from other users by resharing, retweeting, liking or quoting them. The timeline of a typical bot will, therefore, consist of a procession of reshares or retweets and word-for-word quotes of news headlines, with few or no original posts.
      1. Low posts / high results: Bots achieve their effect by the massive amplification of content by a single account. In Twitter for example, they create a large number of accounts which retweet the same post once each: a botnet. Such botnets can quickly be identified when they are used to amplify a single post, if the account which made the post is not normally active.
      2. Common content: The probability that accounts belong to a single network can be confirmed by looking at their posts. If they all post the same content, or type of content, at the same time, they are probably programmed to do so.
      3. The Secret Society of Silhouettes: The most primitive bots are especially easy to identify, because their creators have not bothered to upload an avatar or profile image to them. Some users have silhouettes on their accounts for entirely innocuous reasons; thus the presence of a silhouette account on its own is not an indicator of botness. However, if the list of accounts which retweet, reshare, or like a post looks the same, it’s a red flag. 
      4. Stolen or shared photo: Other bot makers are more meticulous, and try to mask their anonymity by taking photos from other sources. A good test of an account’s veracity is therefore to reverse search its avatar picture. Using Google Chrome, right-click on the image and select “Search Google for Image”. Using other browsers, right-click the image, select “Copy Image Address”, enter the address in a Google search and click “Search by image”. In either case, the search will show up pages with matching images, indicating whether the account is likely to have stolen its avatar:
    • Commercial content: Advertising, indeed, is a classic indicator of botnets. Some botnets appear to exist primarily for that purpose, only occasionally venturing into politics. When they do, their focus on advertising often betrays them.
    1. Automation software: Another clue to potential automation is the use of URL shorteners. These are primarily used to track traffic on a particular link, but the frequency with which they are used can be an indicator of automation.
    2. Retweets/Reshares and likes: A final indicator that a botnet is at work can be gathered by comparing the retweets and likes of a particular post. Some bots are programmed to both retweet and like the same tweet; in such cases, the number of retweets and likes will be almost identical, and the series of accounts which performed the retweets and likes may also match. 

    Bots are an inevitable part of social media, especially twitter. Some exist for legitimate reasons, others don’t. Notwithstanding, the most common indicators to detect them are activity, anonymity, and amplification, the “Three A’s” of bot identification, but other criteria also exist.

    The researcher produced this media literacy article per the Dubawa 2021 Kwame Kari Kari Fellowship partnership with PRNigeria to facilitate the ethos of “truth” in journalism and enhance media literacy in the country.

    VISIT OUR OTHER WEBSITES
    PRNigeria.com EconomicConfidential.com PRNigeria.com/Hausa/
    EmergencyDigest.com PoliticsDigest.ng TechDigest.ng
    HealthDigest.ng SpokesPersonsdigest.com TeensDigest.ng
    ArewaAgenda.com Hausa.ArewaAgenda.com YAShuaib.com
    • TAGS
    • Disinformation
    • election
    • Fake News
    • Misinformation
    • prnigeria
    • Social Media Bots
    Previous articleAudacity of fake news: Army recruiting Boko Haram members? By Fredrick Nwabufo
    Next articleNIPR Endorses Female Advocacy for Inter-Ethnic Relations
    Mohammad Dahiru Lawal
    Mohammad Dahiru Lawal

    RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

    President Muhammadu Buhari

    Rat Story Was a Smokescreen to Divert Attention from Buhari’s Health – Garba Shehu Reveals

    NAF Surgical Airstrikes Decimate Bandit Convoy, Eliminate Scores in Kebbi-Zamfara Axis

    Fact-Check: Did Bandits Die Mysteriously in Nupe Community After Kidnapping Spree?

    Comptroller General Nigerian Customs Bashir Adewale

    Senate Applauds Customs CG Bashir Adeniyi for Global Leadership and Economic Reforms

    Google Search Tech Digest

    7 Smart Google Search Tips That Will Save You Hours By Shuaib S. Agaka | Tech Digest

    Two Killed, Gunman Neutralized as Police Battle Armed Attackers in Anambra

    L-R: Representative of the Managing Director of Bank of Industry, Ugochukwu Akagaogu; Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris; Minister of State for Industry, Senator John Owan Enoh and the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Ambassador Nura Rimi during the tour of the Hydropolis Free Trade Zone in Amfani, Magama Local Government Area of Niger State on Tuesday

    FG Eyes 5,000-Tonne Boost in Fish Production Through PPP Model

    NSA Hails New Joint Doctrine and Welfare Centre to Revolutionize Military Collaboration

    NSA Nuhu Ribadu and NGE President Eze Anaba

    Security Chiefs, Editors, ‘Off-the-Record’ and Other Confidential Rules

    Picture caption: NIPR President, Dr. Ike Neliaku (left) and Governor Abdullahi Sule exchanging the MoU documents.

    NIPR Signs MoU for PR and Leadership Varsity, Nasarawa Govt Approves Land, Scholarships

    Comptroller General Nigerian Customs Bashir Adewale

    Nigeria Customs Takes Anti-Money Laundering Fight to the Skies

    What Life Really Looks Like for Nigerians Battling Sickle Cell, By Hafsat Ibrahim

    Recent Posts

    • Local Government Autonomy Not Negotiable — FG Declares
    • Nigeria’s Future Rests on Smart Defence Management — Badaru to Military Leaders
    • Customs Hands Over 99.2bn Worth of Illicit Pharmaceutical Products to NAFDAC
    • Troops Intercept 3 Gunrunners, Seize Weapons, Cash in Kaduna
    • Troops Bust IPOB/ESN Logistics Network, Arrest Informants in Southeast — DHQ
    • Home
    • About
    • Adverts
    • Contact
    © 2020 PRNigeria. All Rights Reserved.
    Latest News
    Local Government Autonomy Not Negotiable — FG DeclaresNigeria’s Future Rests on Smart Defence Management — Badaru to Military LeadersCustoms Hands Over 99.2bn Worth of Illicit Pharmaceutical Products to NAFDACTroops Intercept 3 Gunrunners, Seize Weapons, Cash in KadunaTroops Bust IPOB/ESN Logistics Network, Arrest Informants in Southeast — DHQSoludo and Radda’s Candid Confessions on Homegrown Terror By Tahir AhmadRat Story Was a Smokescreen to Divert Attention from Buhari’s Health - Garba Shehu RevealsNigeria's Second Chance at a Global Cashless Future By Fatimah Yusuf UsmanAir Chief Rallies New Intelligence Officers for Proactive Security ResponseCustoms, NAFDAC Activate MoU to Fight Substandard Products By Abdullah MaiwadaNELFUND Resumes Monthly Upkeep Payments, Credits Over 3,600 StudentsNNPCL Must Account for ‘Unreconciled’ N210tr in Financial Statements - Senate InsistsPresidency Debunks Misleading Reports on VP Shettima’s Remarks at Book LaunchPolice Arrest, Repatriate Chinese Fugitive Wanted for Tax FraudMurder of Wedding Guests: Plateau Court Remands 20 Suspects
    X whatsapp