From the earliest days of the Internet, robotic programs, or bots, have been trying to pass themselves off as human. … Now come socialbots. These automated charlatans are programmed to tweet and retweet. … Researchers say this new breed of bots is being designed not just with greater sophistication but also with grander goals: to sway elections, to influence the stock market, to attack governments, even to flirt with people and one another. …
In 2010, researchers with Truthy, the Indiana University research group, discovered a number of Twitter accounts sending out duplicate messages and re-tweeting messages from the same few accounts in a closely connected network. Two accounts, for example, sent out 20,000 similar tweets, most of them linking to, or promoting, the Web site of John A. Boehner, then the House minority leader, before the last midterm elections.
Much of the social media remains unregulated by campaign finance and transparency laws. So far, the Federal Election Commission has been reluctant to venture into this realm. [cont.]
Ian Urbina, New York Times