"I built a bot to expose bigots. Then Twitter suspended it and kept the bots"

[CousinIT]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/27/opinion/digital-nazi-hunter-trump.html

...Using a crowdsourced database of impersonator accounts, carefully curated by us to avoid any false positives, the bot patrolled Twitter and interjected whenever impostors tried to insinuate themselves into a discussion. Within days, our golem for the digital age had become a runaway success, garnering thousands of followers and numerous press write-ups. Most important, we received countless thank-yous from alerted would-be victims.

The impersonator trolls seethed. Some tried changing their user names to evade the bot (it didn’t work). Others simply reverted to their openly neo-Nazi personas. A few even tried to impersonate the bot, which was vastly preferable from our perspective and rather amusing.

Then the problems began — but not from where you might expect. The Nazis realized they couldn’t beat the bot, so they started mass-reporting it to Twitter for “harassment.” Just as they duplicitously cast themselves as minorities, they disingenuously recast our response to their ongoing abuse as harassment.

Twitter sided with the Nazis.

In April, the service suspended Impostor Buster without explanation and reinstated it only after being contacted by the ADL’s cyber-hate team. Over the next few months, we fine-tuned the bot to reduce its tweets and avoid tripping any of Twitter’s alarms. As the trolls continued to report the bot to no avail, we thought the problem was resolved. But we were wrong.

This month, Twitter suspended the bot again, and this time refused to revive it. The company’s justifications were both entirely accurate and utterly absurd. “A large number of people have blocked you in response to high volumes of untargeted, unsolicited, or duplicative content or engagements from your account,” we were informed. This was true; Impostor Buster had been blocked by many neo-Nazis. “A large number of spam complaints have been filed against you.” Yes, by neo-Nazis. “You send large numbers of unsolicited replies or mentions.” Yes, to neo-Nazis....

[BSdetect]

1. You undermined their business model. Fuck everybody.

[democratisphere]

2. Twitter Sh'tter and fakebook have NO INTENTIONS of doing anything about

Last edited Thu Dec 28, 2017, 03:04 PM - Edit history (1)

their propoganda and election rigging problems. Once again greed overrides everything decent and real. Want to do something about it? CANCEL your Twitter Sh'tter and fakebook accounts!

[RKP5637]

4. It's all about money, T & F don't give a F about the people or countries. n/t

[dalton99a]

10. +1

[JDC]

3. Twitter is shit

[freemay20]

5. Does anyone know how...

to do this -- to find the imposters on twitter and FB? I understand this gentleman created his own bot but are there others doing the laborious work of scouring social media to find imposters -- and even if not imposters, to find the Nazis who are openly posting -- either manually or through their own bot creation?

Thanks

[PragmaticDem]

6. Twitter is about making money, not the safety of their users.

[cojoel]

8. While I don't disagree with the concept

Twitter is not actually profitable. https://www.marketplace.org/2017/10/25/tech/why-twitter-not-profitable-money-trolls-users

[PragmaticDem]

9. Yes this is true. Originally I think it was because most people were intimidated by Twitter.

Now Trump has turned enough people off to Twitter.

[PragmaticDem]

7. I use Block together to block trolls.

[Blue_true]

11. A lot of discussion boards are falling into the racist trap.

Yahoo discussion boards are a prime example. There are frequent posters on Yahoo boards that post openly racist posts constantly, but it is only those that oppose the racists that get their posting privs frozen. Until public boards wise up, Nazis and other trash will find refuge to spread their hate on them.