X Alternative Plagued by Pesky Bots

Published: December 30, 2024

X Alternative Plagued by Pesky Bots

By Movieguide® Contributor

Social media platform Bluesky has had a recent uptick in users, but not all of them are human.

“Bluesky has seen its user base soar since the U.S. presidential election, boosted by people seeking refuge from Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter),” The Hollywood Reporter said, “which they view as increasingly leaning too far to the right given its owner’s support of President-elect Donald Trump, or wanting an alternative to Meta’s Threads and its algorithms.”

The platform branched out from Twitter and now operates solo. Its user base has doubled since October. However, some of those users are bots created to stir partisan division or bait users to junk sites.

“The skyrocketing user base — now surpassing 25 million — is the biggest test yet for a relatively young platform that has branded itself as a social media alternative free of the problems plaguing its competitors,” THR said. “According to research firm Similarweb, Bluesky added 7.6 million monthly active app users on iOS and Android in November, an increase of 295.4 percent since October. It also saw 56.2 million desktop and mobile web visits, in the same period, up 189 percent from October.”

Bluesky gained some attention when Brazil banned X in August.

AP reported Sep. 5, “As billionaire Elon Musk’s clash with a Brazilian Supreme Court justice came to a head last week, there were legal twists, insults, ultimatums, defiance and then, finally, capitulation. When the digital dust settled, X had become an ex.” Many Brazilians hopped over to Bluesky after the ban.

In November, several American journalists announced they’re leaving X for Bluesky: “the Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel, the New York Times’ Mara Gay and former CNN anchor Don Lemon,” CNN reported. “UK newspaper The Guardian also said Wednesday that it will no longer post to X from its official channels, calling X ‘a toxic media platform.’”

“They got this spike in attention, they’ve crossed the threshold where it is now worth it for people to flood the platform with spam,” said Laura Edelson, assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern University and member of Issue One’s Council for Responsible Social Media. “But they don’t have the cash flow, they don’t have the established team that a larger platform would, so they have to do it all very, very quickly.”

Bluesky originally made the platform invitation-only until it made it available to the public in February. The slow growth allowed the app to create its distinct features.

“Compared to the bigger players like Meta’s platforms or X, Bluesky has a ‘quite different’ value system, said Claire Wardle, a professor at Cornell University and an expert in misinformation. This includes giving users more control over their experience,” THR said.

“The first generation of social media platforms connected the world, but ended up consolidating power in the hands of a few corporations and their leaders,” Bluesky’s blog says. “Our online experience doesn’t have to depend on billionaires unilaterally making decisions over what we see. On an open social network like Bluesky, you can shape your experience for yourself.”

Because of its value system, Bluesky has become an attractive option for those who are frustrated with mainstream social media platforms.

“People had this idea that it was going to be a different type of social network,” Wardle explained. “But the truth is, when you get lots of people in a place and there are eyeballs, it means that it’s in other people’s interests to use bots to create, you know, information that aligns with their perspective.”

“Little data has emerged to help quantify the rise in impersonator accounts, artificial intelligence-fueled networks and other potentially harmful content on Bluesky,” THR said. “But in recent weeks, users have begun reporting large numbers of apparent AI bots following them, posting plagiarized articles or making seemingly automated divisive comments in replies.”

Netherlands native and doctoral candidate Lion Cassens discovered several German language accounts with identical bios and AI-generated photos that were replying to German newspapers.

“I noticed some weird replies under a news post by the German newspaper Die Ziet,” he said. “I have a lot of trust in the moderation mechanism on Bluesky, especially compared to Twitter since the layoffs and due to Musk’s more radical stance on freedom of speech. But AI bots are a big challenge, as they will only improve. I hope social media can keep up with that.”

There are claims that disinformation is also being spread on the platform. There are also many copycat accounts.

“In late November, Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the Security, Trust and Safety Initiative at Cornell Tech, found that of the top 100 most followed named individuals on Bluesky, 44 percent had at least one duplicate account posing as them,” THR said. “Two weeks later, Mantzarlis said Bluesky had removed around two-thirds of the duplicate accounts he’d initially detected — a sign the site was aware of the issue and attempting to address it.”

“Bluesky posted earlier this month that it had quadrupled its moderation team to keep up with its growing user base. The company also announced it had introduced a new system to detect impersonation and was working to improve its Community Guidelines to provide more detail on what’s allowed,” THR continued. “Because of the way the site is built, users also have the option to subscribe to third-party ‘Labelers’ that outsource content moderation by tagging accounts with warnings and context.”

Edward Perez, who previously led Twitter’s civic integrity team, said Bluesky will need to quickly assess and eliminate threats in order to thrive.

But that’s not the only thing it needs to do. Text-based platforms aren’t popular with young generations. “A recent Pew Research Center poll found that only 17 percent of American teenagers used X, for instance, down from 23 percent in 2022. For teens and young adults, TikTok, Instagram and other visual-focused platforms are the places to be,” THR reported. So Bluesky may need to make some changes if it wants to attract the younger crowds.

“Political polarization is also going against Bluesky ever reaching the size of TikTok, Instagram or even X,” THR said.

However, Wardle believes that may not matter to the company. “Bluesky is not trying to be all things to all people,” she said.