LOL, I noticed last night that at one point there was 75 members online and 73 bots. That's about one bot per member!
So what do you think happens? The bots post anti-democrat or anti-republican posts? How would those differ from normal users on both sides posting the same things? People say that Russia posting a few dozen facebook ads changed the election but they seem to forget that Hillary released far more than that but apparently hers had zero effect? That just doesn't make sense does it? I actually don't know anyone that doesn't have a political position and simply relies on ads to decide who to vote for.
During the last election some boards were hit with massive bot activity, and I know of one that actually shut down. So you are obviously playing down the seriousness of an actual and potential problem. It doesn't make sense because argumentum ad hominem tu quoque is no justification. And another problem is how do I know you are not a bot? Therefore, you are ignored--how's that?
Everyone understands that bots do not actually post here correct? The members that might happen to disagree with your political opinion and debate with you are actual people, not bots that are placed here to argue with everybody. But of course since I am a staff member I would never admit that half the forum are advanced robots capable of formulating arguments and engaging in political conversation....We have to keep the conspiracy going...
I do think we have some posters here from other countries playing both sides against the other, but I agree, they are not bots bots are not that advanced yet, though the technology is improving, some corporations now use chatbots on their websites to answer questions in their chat, though most pop up suggested responses to their reps for now
yes they do, that is how when you search for text of a post it shows up in google search, web crawlers gather much data
I think there are bots which are capable of posting threads. (and crawlers of course) But as for sticking around and actually holding conversation... probably unlikely. Though there are probably also some which are combination of bot and human. Aka, cyborg, or bot/human partnership, where the bot part handles some things, and the human takes care of stuff that the bot can't do as well, like conversation. -Meta