Bots

Earlier this morning, Elon tweeted a reply about his upcoming purchase of Twitter to @Teslarati: "20% fake/spam accounts, while 4 times what Twitter claims, could be *much* higher. My offer was based on Twitter's SEC filings being accurate.Yesterday, Twitter's CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%. This deal cannot move forward until he does." Continue Reading →

This past week, I sat with my friends to count our blessings and rejoice in the season of winter festivals. It will not surprise you to learn that we had some unexpected guests including the President of the United States. Not in person, of course, but he was “in the house.” I won’t bore you with the general split. You already know everything you need to know about the topic and what each side believes. But here’s what I didn’t know. The people who are most influenced by sockpuppeted, bot-influenced, social media-infused, AI-generated, deepfaked content are the ones who are the most certain that they are not influenced at all. Continue Reading →

Cyber Monday is supposed to be an awesome online shopping day. It is. I've seen estimates as high as $9 Billion for today. However, I've also seen estimates from NBC News and Radware that as much as 97 percent of online traffic today will be bot traffic. Continue Reading →

Facebook is getting into the dating game. Deepfakes are getting better and better. Put them both together and they present a potential reality as sinister as it is deceitful. Imagine online dating in a world replete with deepfakes. Continue Reading →

Gamers have been pitting their wits and skill against computers since the earliest days of video games. The levels of difficulty were pre-programmed, and at a certain point in the game, the computer was simply unbeatable by all but the most gifted gamers. That was then ... Continue Reading →

It’s you against the bots and trolls. And, although you may not know it, you are being viciously attacked every day. To help you understand how, I am going to teach you (for informational purposes only) how to weaponize social media, and build your own troll farm. If you can read, copy, and paste, then you can do this. Let’s begin. Continue Reading →

Bots generate more than half the traffic on the public Internet. This is indisputable. In fact, the Association of National Advertisers believes that advertisers will lose $6.3 billion globally to bots in 2015. This will not stop until someone (the marketers, the government, the justice department) makes it stop because everyone – the ad networks, the traffic sellers, the bot creators, the publishers, the ad agencies, the trading desks, the DMPs, the SSPs, everyone – except the marketers – is making money. Continue Reading →