Find Chinese Bots in Seconds

4 points

7 years ago

The Peoples Daily posts periodic "news" updates discrediting Hong Kong Protesters or condemnations of those supporting the protestors such as this example where the EU and Canada are admonished:

https://twitter.com/PDChina/status/1163022758445342727

I was silly enough to respond but within minutes received angry responses from 10 bots. Each of these accounts looked suspicious because of the following reasons:

* The account was new * The account only posts responses to Hong Kong posts * The user name contained a very long hash such as "Jin1q2321Z23_f" * no followers * not following anyone

This was fun, but could provide a useful set of data for those working at Twitter, Facebook or Instagram who are combating this type of fake news. These accounts could be automated but I would not put it past the Chinese to employ fake news agents as the Russians did in 2016. If you work at Twitter or Facebook please help fight this type of behavior because leading up to the Tiananmen square massacre China attempted to discredit those demonstrators in a similar way.

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