{"id":675,"date":"2022-09-15T13:26:25","date_gmt":"2022-09-15T17:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-461\/f2022\/?p=675"},"modified":"2022-09-15T13:26:25","modified_gmt":"2022-09-15T17:26:25","slug":"typology-of-bots-on-the-gram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-461\/f2022\/c_\/09\/15\/typology-of-bots-on-the-gram\/","title":{"rendered":"typology of bots on the gram"},"content":{"rendered":"

I found a bot account on Instagram: <\/span>https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/support.arts.gallery_\/<\/a><\/span>.<\/span> All its content is ripped from other accounts, finding them through tags like #art and #artist. The bot picks 4 to 5 images and reposts them in a gallery, the cover of which is a screenshot of their profile put on a white t shirt:<\/span><\/p>\n

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It reminded me of a post I stumbled upon (that I can no longer find) from a large bot account promoting a crypto scam, where all the comments were different bots promoting different crypto scams. It made me think about how many bots interact primarily with other bots, and the strange ecosystem that creates. An initial idea was to survey the different behaviors and kinds of bots myself (ie. crypto scam bots, nft scam bots, sexting bots, etc). Then I realized it was silly to do this manually: I could make a bot myself.<\/span><\/p>\n

I plan on using <\/span>GramAddict<\/span><\/a><\/span> (the most current FOSS response to numerous <\/span>Instagram automation services<\/span><\/a><\/span>) to program a bot expressly to engage with other bots, finding them through hashtags (#art, #crypto, #nft, #promotion, #follow4follow, #f4f, etc…) and the comment sections of larger bots (like@support.arts.gallery_). The goal is to build up an account whose likes, follows, private messages, and all other recorded interactions represent the diversity and ubiquity of bots on platforms like Instagram. <\/span><\/p>\n

Over the past few years, bot detection efforts have largely <\/span>pushed basic python script bots out of relevancy<\/span><\/a><\/span>, leaving paid services left as the only consistent way to artificially promote posts or accounts. There’s a nonzero chance that GramAddict will quickly become deprecated, and the only paid services available won’t provide me the tools I need to assess other bots. In this case, I still feel seeking out and engaging with bots manually would generate interesting results. A couple times a week, a bot will follow or comment on my Instagram, or add me to a giant group chat on Twitter. I’d expect this rate would dramatically increase if I find and follow 200 different NFT scams and comment on every automated thirst trap that graces my direct message box. <\/span><\/p>\n

Either way, I’m jazzed to explore new, exciting, and less entertaining<\/a> forms of scam-bating.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I found a bot account on Instagram: https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/support.arts.gallery_\/. All its content is ripped from other accounts, finding them through tags like #art and #artist. The bot picks 4 to 5 images and reposts them in a gallery, the cover of which is a screenshot of their profile put on a white t shirt: It reminded … Continue reading “typology of bots on the gram”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-461\/f2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-461\/f2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-461\/f2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-461\/f2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-461\/f2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-461\/f2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":751,"href":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-461\/f2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions\/751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-461\/f2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-461\/f2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-461\/f2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}