User:Emily D Smallen/sandbox/Social Bots

What are social bots? they are chat bots within a program to fill in replies, followers, and instant messages on different social media platforms. In some states they have specific laws against bots, mainly for ticket scalping.

These social bots have been increasingly popular with the years as social following and online trolling has became more popular. These algorithms made a huge rise in the 2016 presidential elections. The problem with these bots is they can spread fake news and affect ongoing political issues. Even though this programs can be harmful to the internet, there are some good that can come from using social bots. Forbes made an article of the good bots can do, they can spread awareness for charities and local issues ( fact checked of course ). They can gauge civic engagement by gathering information from viral posts. Apps made to use these bots are open to the public for anyone to use as cheap as $4.99, this can be good and bad.

One example of a bad chat bot is when Microsoft's bot, [|Tay] was hacked on twitter and was replying with racist comments to other twitter users. The bot was only operational for 16 hours before it was shut down but the fact that someone was able to make the flaw in her coding to be able to generate such responses is the problem with social bots, especially when involving a big company.