Bots Rock the Vote

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

Technology during election season has been the Democrat Party's strong suit.  The liberal left has an incredible email campaign, and their use of bots is not only phenomenal, but most people don't even realize it when they are dealing with bots.

When trying to figure out how to vote, most people seem to think other people are more informed, so they make their research a social endeavor.  Being politically informed, for most people, is too difficult a task.  They would rather be told how to vote.

Enter, stage left, software robots specifically designed to deceive them.

What is even worse, the bots have gotten so advanced that most folks don't even know they are communicating with something that isn't even human.

Twitter, for example, two years ago, had more than 23 million of its active user accounts being run by “bots”.  The bots advised of news and world events, and even interacted with human users.

The bots were so effective that they actually swayed public opinion - not just in the United States, but in other regions as well.  In fact, the leftists have been influencing elections through social media bots for over a decade.

In Britain's Brexit vote, evidence is emerging that there was significant bot activity ahead of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.

In the U.S. bots are currently being used by both sides in the 2016 presidential race for the White House.  Bots of various kinds operate 24 hours a day, and account for about 50 percent of all activity on the web.

According to the Central American hacker, Sepúlveda, peoples’ opinions tend to be swayed more by views they see as coming spontaneously from real people than by views expressed on television or in newspapers.

Oxford Professor Philip Howard, who led the research on Brexit, and Samuel Woolley of the University of Washington suggest that the first step towards a solution is to make it easier for everyone to recognize bots.

People need to know with whom or what they are interacting on the internet.  Surely, a free market incentive exists to give folks a way to tell.

Government won't help.  The bots work in their favor when it comes to the grand deception.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary