Bots of note
Bots have been around for several years, and some even have thousands of followers. Some of them simply react to words in tweets. For instance, anyone using the phrase “illegal immigrant” can expect a response from @DroptheIBot with the message, “People aren’t illegal. Try saying ‘undocumented immigrant’ or ‘unauthorised immigrant’ instead.”
The Twitter bot @everyword began tweeting every word in the English language in 2007. A new word was tweeted every 30 minutes until it completed its task in 2014, after 109,157 words. The author even published a book of the event.
There are also bots that exist for political parody. Mentioning the words “communism” or “socialism” provokes the ire of @RedScareBot Robot J McCarthy himself, who tells you the “Red Storm is rising” and to “circle the wagons”.
@DeepDrumpf is a Twitter bot created by MIT, which uses neural network technology to analyse data and post tweets in the supposed speaking style of Donald Trump. The developers claim the bot was trained using transcripts of Donald Trump’s speeches.
The twitter bot @factbot1 makes good use of images. Creator Eric Drass programmed the bot in response to the tendency of some people to believe unproven facts, provided they’re accompanied by an image. The bot regularly tweets nearly true and nonsensical facts. One such ‘fact’ is that the Canadian government derives 38 per cent of its income from the sale of doughnuts. This is plausible, given the ubiquity of Tim Hortons cafés in the land of the maple leaf, but sadly false.