Trump deceived
The Internet Is a Hotbed of Lies.
Last year, between tweets disputing his election loss, President Trump posted an article from a conservative website that said his sister Elizabeth Trump Grau had just joined Twitter to publicly back her brother’s fight to overturn the vote.
“Thank you Elizabeth,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “LOVE!”
But the Twitter account that prompted the article was not his sister’s. It was a fake profile run by Josh Hall, a 21-year-old food-delivery driver in Mechanicsburg, Pa.
“I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness. He actually thinks it’s his sister,’” Mr. Hall, a fervent Trump supporter, said in an interview.
(cited from Jack Nicas, the New York Times)
Social Bots
According to one oft-cited estimate, over 37% of all Internet traffic is not human and is instead the work of bots designed for either good or bad purposes, like social media bots.
Social media bots are described as programs that “can be used on social media platforms to do various useful and malicious tasks while simulating human behavior.” These programs use artificial intelligence and big data analytics to imitate legitimate activities.
More than 90% of social media bots are used for commercial purposes, some of which may be benign — like chatbots that facilitate company-to-customer relations — while others are illicit, such as when influencers use them to boost their supposed popularity (which correlates with how much money they can command from advertisers) or when online publishers use them to increase the number of clicks an ad receives (which allows them to earn more commissions from advertisers).
Such misuses generate significant ad revenue.
“Bad” social media bots can also be used to distribute commercial spam containing promotional links and facilitate the spread of fake or deceptive online product reviews.
Using social bots to generate likes, comments, or subscribers would generally contradict the terms of service of many social media platforms. Major social media companies have made commitments to better protect their platforms and networks from manipulation, including the misuse of automated bots. Those companies have since reported on their actions to remove or disable billions of inauthentic accounts.
This is an example: Does Facebook Really Know How Many Fake Accounts It Has?
At present, it is cheap and easy to manipulate social media. Bots have remained attractive for these reasons and because they are still hard for platforms to detect, are available at different levels of functionality and sophistication, and are financially rewarding to buyers and sellers.
(cited from Richard B. Newman, National Law Review, Volume X, Number 199)
How does this affect our jobs as marketers?
As far as I’m concerned, the first thing we need to do is to learn to identify those who are really influential and who are false celebrities. So that we can avoid more detours by screening real influencers when we choose KOL to put ads and promote our products.
The second important thing is to learn to filter data. Whether in the investigation stage before making a decision or in the later evaluation stage, we must learn to accurately grasp the true and effective data.
Finally, as a marketer, we need to pay attention to market dynamics at any time, including some policies and regulations( like Devumi, the first company punished by the United States government for selling followers and likes on social media), in order to adjust marketing strategies in time.
And the video below is about 5 major signs of FAKE social media influence. It tells something enlightening.
Conclusion
Obviously, social media fakery has brought a lot of trouble to our data analysis. It not only reduces our work efficiency, but also has negative impacts on accuracy and effectiveness of data. In addition, fake and misleading comments are likely to increase the difficulty of our later evaluation work. Hence, identifying social media fakery is an essential preparation for marketers.
