Pre-Debate, Trump Locks Up All-Important Robot Vote

Careful with those hands, Robbie!

Watch those hands, Robbie!

Via Shaun Dakin, important news about Trump’s and Clinton’s social-media support around the last presidential debate:

A University of Oxford study indicates [Trump] may have had some help in the form of pro-Trump Twitter bots. These deplorable-bots (can we make that a thing?) tweeted approximately 576,178 times, accounting for nearly a third (32.7 percent) of all pro-Trump posts that evening and in the four days to follow.

Meanwhile, Twitter bots wiggled their shiny metallic fingers on Clinton’s behalf only 136,639 times…the robot vote must be rigged! Of course, the usual caveats apply: the researchers’ algorithms might not have correctly identified bot traffic, and even without mechanical assistance, pro-Trump messaging would have won out on Twitter.

What’s in it for the robots, other than fewer immigrants competing for low-wage jobs? We can assume that these accounts are jumping on popular hashtags and tweets to build their OWN followings, so that the people behind them can turn their audiences into cash. So we needn’t assume that Trump’s campaign has anything to do with it. Simple greed will do.

cpd

Written by
Colin Delany
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