Twitter has proven to be an invaluable tool for communication during breaking news intense periods of political unrest. When thousands of people tweet, the outside world gets a chance to understand events on the ground. But what if none of those thousands of people were real, and the events never happened? A malicious puppetmaster could create hundreds of Twitter bots, letting them live perfectly normal and believable lives for months while they build up followers. Then one day, a careful crafted false story unfolds on the stage of social media, played out by a single director with hundreds of actors. Real world Incidents have shown that powerful stories can become widespread before there is time for fact checking. Before anyone realizes all the TwitPics are faked, the false news will have made international headlines. Social Robots challenge our preconceived notions of what social media can be used for. They present a dangerous threat to the news industry, but also a powerful opportunity to help people.

1. Gepetto’s Army: Creating International Incidentswith Twitter Bots #twitterbots @gregmarra 14 Mar 2011

2. No content from this presentation is endorsed by or represents the views of any companies, educational institutions, or anybody but me.

4. http://www.micropersuasion.com/2008/09/cnn-twitters-it.html

5. http://articles.cnn.com/2011-02-14/opinion/nye.egypt.power_1_soft-power-information-age-muslim-brotherhood

6. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-5092668-503544.html

8. http://www.lostremote.com/2011/01/09/how-an-incorrect-report-of-giffords-death-spread-on-twitter/

9. http://www.exquisitetweets.com/collection/abscond/152

10. http://www.exquisitetweets.com/collection/abscond/152

11. "Jakarta tsunami tomorrow" - AndiArief Indonesian Presidential Special Staff for Social and Disaster Assistance http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/11/25/hacker-spreads-jakarta-tsunami-warning-from-government-advisors-twitter-account/

13. Automate It!

15. Project Realboy Goals Identify Social Graph Clusters Infiltrate Social Graph Clusters Achieve 25% Follow-Back Rate

19. Life of a Realboy 3x Daily Follow 5 more target_users Follow back all new followers Tweet something

21. happy

24. “My holidays are starting soon! I wish everyone a happy time and much much fun!”

26. Fly Under Radar No @replies No #tags

27. Copying Tweets = Automatic Coherence* *as coherent as the average Twitter user

29. February

30. February March

31. February March July

35. @gregmarra @craiovatweet @robotboston @clarksadventure @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet @craiovatweet

37. Social Robot Competitions 1pt for follow-back 3pts for @replies -15pts if bots caught http://www.webecologyproject.org/2011/01/help-robots-take-over-the-internet-the-socialbots-2011-competition/

38. Social Robots Strategies Turk tweets Ask softball questions Swarm tactics

39. Mechanical Turk

40. Softball Questions

41. Support Swarm Bot Target Support Swarm

42. Human Workers

44. Open Source Social Robots http://ca.olin.edu/2008/realboy/code.html http://www.webecologyproject.org/2011/02/complete-source-code-from-socialbots-2011/

45. Your Own Army! Mar Launch Bots

46. Your Own Army! Mar Launch Bots Apr - Jul Build Audience, Credibility Script Fake Event

47. Your Own Army! Mar Launch Bots Apr - Jul Build Audience, Credibility Script Fake Event Aug Play Out Script ??? Headlines!!!

49. http://www.flickr.com/photos/candelabrumdanse/3353943533/

50. http://churmura.com/technology/gadgets/solid-gold-iphone-3g/22171/

53. Defense Tactics Detect robots Do homework

54. Social Robots can’t be detected like Spambots Spam Bots Follow many random people Tweet a lot at once Tweet links

55. Social Robots can’t be detected like Spambots Spam Bots Social Robots Follow many random people Follow connected people Tweet a lot at once Tweet at normal pace Tweet links Tweet like real people

57. More Information Co-Researchers

58. Gepetto’s Army: Creating International Incidents with Twitter Bots#twitterbots | @gregmarra Mar Launch Bots Apr - Jul Build Audience, Credibility Script Fake Event Aug Play Out Script 14 Mar 2011