Inside a Twitter Robot Factory
Inside a Twitter Robot Factory
Fake Activity, Often Bought for Publicity Purposes,
Influences Trending Topics
By JEFF ELDER
Nov. 24, 2013 6:25 p.m. ET
One day earlier this month, Jim Vidmar bought 1,000 fake
Twitter accounts for $58 from an online vendor in Pakistan.
He then programmed the accounts to "follow" the
Twitter account of rapper Dave Murrell, who calls himself Fyrare and pays Mr.
Vidmar to boost his standing on the social network. Mr. Vidmar's fake accounts
also rebroadcast Mr. Murrell's tweets, amplifying his Twitter voice.
Mr. Murrell says he sometimes buys Twitter ads to raise
his profile, "but you'll get more with Jim." He says many Twitter
users try to make their followings look bigger than they are. "If you're
not padding your numbers, you're not doing it right," he says. "It's
part of the game."
Mr. Vidmar offers a window into the shadowy world of
false accounts and computerized robots on Twitter, one of the world's largest
social networks. Surrounded by a dozen computers at his home overlooking a golf
course near the Las Vegas Strip, Mr. Vidmar has been buying fake accounts and
unleashing them on Twitter for six years.
Today, he says he manages 10,000 robots for roughly 50
clients, who pay Mr. Vidmar to make them appear more popular and influential.
His are among millions of fake accounts on Twitter. Mr.
Vidmar and other owners manage them to simulate Twitter users: they tweet;
retweet, or forward, other tweets; send and reply to messages; and follow and
unfollow other Twitter accounts, among other actions.
Some entertainers pay for fake followers. But false
accounts can be political tools as well. In 2011, thousands of fake accounts disrupted
anti-Kremlin protesters on Twitter.
The fake accounts remain a cloud over Twitter Inc. in the
wake of its successful initial public offering. "Twitter is where many
people get news," says Sherry Turkle, director of the MIT Initiative on
Technology and Self. "If what is trending on Twitter is being faked by
robots, people need to know that. This will and should undermine trust."
Fake accounts thrive on Twitter in part because, unlike
Facebook, Twitter doesn't limit users to a single account, or require them to
use their real names.
Twitter's terms of service prohibit "mass account
creation," and the buying or selling of accounts or followers. Last
spring, Twitter helped a research team apply a filter that, for a time, blocked
95% of new fake accounts.
A Twitter spokesman wouldn't disclose whether the company
has continued to use the researchers' technique to identify and block suspect
accounts.
While conceding that fakes are "a difficult problem,
the Twitter spokesman said, "We have a variety of automated and manual
controls in place to detect, flag, and suspend accounts created solely for spam
purposes."
On Friday the company posted a job opening ad on its site
for an anti-spam product manager position.
Mr. Vidmar says Facebook has suspended his accounts and
threatened legal action for pursuing similar activities on that network.
Twitter hasn't contacted or reprimanded him, he says, though it has suspended
or deleted several personal accounts he has used to pitch his business.
In securities filings, Twitter says it believes fake
accounts represent fewer than 5% of its 230 million active users. Independent
researchers believe the number is higher.
Italian security researchers Andrea Stroppa and Carlo De
Micheli say they found 20 million fake accounts for sale on Twitter this
summer. That would amount to nearly 9% of Twitter's monthly active users. The
Italian researchers also found software for sale that allows spammers to create
unlimited fake accounts. The researchers decoded robot-programming software to
reveal how easy it is for spammers to control the convincing fakes.
Twitter declined to discuss specific findings.
Jason Ding, a researcher at Barracuda Labs who has
studied fake Twitter followers for more than a year, also thinks Twitter
underestimates the prevalence of fake accounts on the network. Mr. Ding says
users don't understand how active and realistic the fakes can appear.
For 10 months in 2012 and 2013, a team of researchers
from the University of California Berkeley and George Mason University worked
with Twitter's security department to help identify fake accounts and minimize
robot activity.
The team bought fake accounts on the black market,
identified common characteristics, and developed a filter that would block
roughly 95% of such accounts. Twitter's previous system caught about 8% of fake
accounts, the researchers said. They presented the results at an academic
conference.
In April, Twitter and the researchers applied the filter.
Mr. Vidmar says he remembers the day, because most of his fake accounts were
deleted, and he couldn't create new ones. "They cleaned house," he
says.
But Mr. Vidmar and others say the underground market
quickly adapted. The researchers' system flagged accounts with incomplete
profiles, no pictures, and little activity. In response, Mr. Vidmar says
suppliers now fill out more account details, add pictures, and tweet from the
accounts before selling them.
That drove up the cost of fake accounts. But marketers and
researchers say the black market is again thriving.
Just two weeks after the crackdown, Twitter caught only
about half the suspicious accounts being offered by merchants previously
identified as selling fake accounts, according to the Berkeley researchers.
Mr. Vidmar says one of his suppliers is offering 150,000
fake accounts for sale. "I could go buy fake accounts from about 20
different sources right now," he says.
Mr. Ding, the Barracuda Labs researcher, says the
fake-account market is "going very strong." He and other researchers
say Twitter doesn't appear to be applying the Berkeley researchers' techniques
to root out other fake accounts.
Mr. Vidmar's robots have helped make his clients
"trending topics" on Twitter, giving them special mention on Twitter
users' home pages. The trending topics appear just below the "promoted
trend" that the company sells for as much as $200,000 a day. The trending
topics aren't marked as "sponsored," so they appear more genuine.
Rapper Tony Benson says hiring Mr. Vidmar to promote his
account on Twitter is "the best decision I ever made." Mr. Vidmar's
robots made the rapper, known as Philly Chase, a trending topic so often around
Philadelphia that he attracted attention from local newspapers. Prominence on
Twitter led to gigs, fans and ways to promote his videos, Mr. Benson says.
Mr. Vidmar uses software to follow tens of thousands of
accounts for his clients, another tactic Twitter prohibits. Being followed
prompts many Twitter users to return the favor, and follow his clients.
In September, Mr. Vidmar used software to follow more
than 100,000 Twitter users in a week for the Australian rock band The
Contagious; that boosted the band's following by 20,000.
The band has a "verified" account, meaning it
has taken extra steps to prove to Twitter that the account is real.
Write to Jeff Elder at jeff.elder@wsj.com
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