You are a Bot! -- Studying the Development of Bot Accusations on Twitter

TL;DR

This study investigates how bot accusations on Twitter have evolved and questions their validity as indicators for detecting automated accounts, highlighting their role in dehumanization.

Contribution

It provides the first large-scale analysis of bot accusations on Twitter and examines their implications for bot detection methods.

Findings

Bot accusations are used to dehumanize social media users.

The term 'bot' is often used to deny humanness in conversations.

Bot accusations should not be directly used as signals for bot detection.

Abstract

The characterization and detection of bots with their presumed ability to manipulate society on social media platforms have been subject to many research endeavors over the last decade. In the absence of ground truth data (i.e., accounts that are labeled as bots by experts or self-declare their automated nature), researchers interested in the characterization and detection of bots may want to tap into the wisdom of the crowd. But how many people need to accuse another user as a bot before we can assume that the account is most likely automated? And more importantly, are bot accusations on social media at all a valid signal for the detection of bots? Our research presents the first large-scale study of bot accusations on Twitter and shows how the term bot became an instrument of dehumanization in social media conversations since it is predominantly used to deny the humanness of conversation partners. Consequently, bot accusations on social media should not be naively used as a signal to train or test bot detection models.