Bots aren’t a bad thing. They can be pretty useful as it can help provide information during a Twitch livestream when the creator is busy. It can also be used to automate certain processes in Discord chat channels, and also identify links in posts on Reddit, and so on. However, they do sometimes have a bad reputation as some people use bots to spam, spread misinformation, and so on.
However, sometimes it can be hard to tell if a post is coming from a bot or an actual person on social media, but that’s something Twitter is looking to address. The company has announced that they will now start testing out a new feature for its platform where accounts run by bots will be identified in their profile.
What's a bot and what's not? We're making it easier to identify #GoodBots and their automated Tweets with new labels.
Starting today, we’re testing these labels to give you more context about who you're interacting with on Twitter. pic.twitter.com/gnN5jVU3pp
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) September 9, 2021
Posts made by bots will also come with a tag that says “Automated” so that people know it was not a person who posted it. Like we said, not all bots are bad and some can be useful, but at the same time, being able to identify if an account you’re interacting with is a bot or not will help provide additional context for users.
It can also help increase the trust in bots by showing that not all automated content is necessarily a bad thing. The feature will initially roll out to over 500 developer accounts, and is expected to be available to all developers by the end of the year.
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