Internet Bots on Social Networks
As social networks have become more and more popular, one major problem is that internet bots are able to take advantage of this growing phenom to spew advertisements and compromise private information about people they interact with. While each individual computer program may not be complex enough to hold under too much scrutiny, hundreds of thousands of these programs are able to flood social networks, increasing the probability that people interact with them, and allowing them to gain access to information the people place on their accounts, advertising to those people, and selling their information. To gain access to this information, accounts are created with fake information which then try to connect with human users, relying on connections between people to allow them easier access to spreading.
Researchers at the University of British Columbia tested this phenom by creating 102 social media programs for Facebook which then would randomly send 25 requests per day, ensuring that they were not caught by security programs, until they had sent over 5000 friend requests. Initially, 19% of the users responded, after which they sent over 3500 more request to friends of these users. Around 59% of these new requests were accepted, giving a clear demonstration of the how triadic closure property allows these internet bots to become so successful. It is important to note that Facebook criticized the methods used during the study, but still said that it would try to use this analysis to better its own security.
Social media bots are both widespread and surprisingly effective. Facebook has been targeted by programs designed to imitate humans and have taken at least 250 gigabytes worth of data, and has acknowledged that it has millions of accounts which are not actually run by humans, but are instead run by programs. However, this infiltration is not unique to Facebook alone, as other social media networks such as internet comment sections have also been saturated with programs designed to spam or send malware to viewers. This also hurts the social media sites themselves, causing them to lose money, since businesses are able to interact with the users themselves instead of advertising through the companies.
This topic relates to the material covered in the class by showing an example of how the triadic closure property is effective in allowing harmful programs in compromising users private information and spreading advertising. As soon as the bots have one edge to a user, it is more likely to gain another edge through the triadic closure property, since the users are less likely to question an account which has already been accepted by a friend. Therefore, while many of the examples of networking are seen positively through the spread of information or fads, networks also allow malicious users and software to exploit users for their own gain.
Links:
https://www.cnet.com/news/socialbots-steal-250gb-of-user-data-in-facebook-invasion/
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/317557/hashtag/social-bots-invade-facebook