X Live-Tweets Its Fight Against Chatbot Spam In Real-Time via @sejournal, @martinibuster
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X spent 24 hours posting live updates on its anti-chatbot campaign, offering a look at how AI-generated spam evolves and how X counters it. SEJ STAFF Roger Montti 23 seconds ago ⋅ 5 min read SEJ STAFF Roger Montti Owner - Martinibuster.com at Martinibuster.com Bio Follow Nikita Bier, head of product at X (formerly known as Twitter) posted a series of extraordinary tweets about spam on Twitter, explaining the motivation of some of the spammers, they described types of spam and mentioned that some spammers were using Grok to auto-post spam responses at scale. Nikita Bier spent 24 hours tweeting anti-spam actions in real time, revealing details about how how automated and fast-paced AI-assisted platform spamming has become. Bier started their series of tweets describing the scope of the chatbot problem, saying that providing authenticity on X is a core value that’s central to the company’s core values. “We found 42,000 accounts automating replies using chatbots and have removed them from the platform. X’s core value is providing an authentic pulse on humanity — and using AI to programmatically engage with users without a human in the loop runs counter to our mission.” Bier followed up the next day with a clarification about what the chatbot spamming was about. They explained that the spam wasn’t ideologically driven, it was not political nor a a state-run influence operation. It was purely about monetization. Apparently the spammers were trying to grow an audience in order to leverage that for paid promotion deals from AI companies looking to extend their influence. Companies don’t normally post about their spam issues and the real-time posting by Bier offered a behind-the-scene look at the scale and motivations. Perhaps you should find a different app pic.twitter.com/z9Qv0vbpZj “For transparency, the bulk of them were spamming thought-leadership slop about artificial intelligence — to grow accounts and receive paid promotion offers from AI tech companies. After a day Bier posted a quick update about a timeline for when to see the X feed improve, again showing how these kinds of anti-spam actions work in real-time. “This spam attack was mitigated tonight. Your feed will improve in the next 6-12 hours.” Bier’s tweets served as an open statement to spammers to show how serious they are about fighting inauthentic behavior on the platform, calling the spammers criminals. “We will clean this place. I don’t care how many enemies I create. X will not be manipulated by criminals.” The most eye-opening part of the thread wasn’t a short exchange between Bier and one of the X members. Bier described one spam operator that was so persistent and adaptive (40 method changes in six months), that the spammer behaves less like a bot farm and more like someone who’s sitting right next to them tracking all their responses and rapidly coming up with a countermeasure. A reply from an X member called attention to the fact that some of these spammers have started using Grok, X’s own AI product, to generate their replies. Bier confirmed that the Grok-based method had already been caught and blocked. In their response, Bier revealed that X’s response time of 12-18 hour turnarounds was an improvement over how long the same problem used to linger under the old Twitter. “There are a few spammers on X that have been pivoting their strategy for the last 6 months. One of the them (“This guy is a great trader ⬇️”) has pivoted a total of 40 times after each method has been blocked. Some of the techniques are so creative and fast that it feels like they’re sitting right next to us. At this point, we might as well hire them because they are just as familiar with the X codebase as us.” a lot of them have been using some kind of grok reply recently.” Our team is standing by waiting for their next move. We are 10x more proactive than before. This would fester for months at Twitter but our turnaround time now is 12-18 hours.” Another interesting result of this thread about spam actions in real-time is that one person posted about their false-positive experience with the spam actions. A false positive is when a machine makes a mistake, labeling something as spam when in fact it’s not. In real life, these kinds of algorithms rely on a multitude of signals in order to pinpoint spam with a high level of accuracy but false positives can still happen, ideally a low percentage of time. “I gotta be honest. I was surprised to get a notice for my account being spam. I clicked the request review button and about 12 hours later I was reinstated. I did complain about grass app being a scam and immediately got a notice. Not sure the link there but glad to see the algorithm or whatever decides spam or no spam made the right call.” Bier’s posts received a positive response from X users, some of whom expressed that some of these engagement chatbots must be generating engagement numbers but that their inauthentic nature makes them a scourge. “On one hand, people clearly like this rubbish somehow. On the other hand, I agree you can’t let that be the site’s content, even if people follow it. It can’t be a race to the bottom.” Many were happy to see that X was fighting back against inauthentic AI chatbot spam. It ruins the experience because people come to social media platforms like X to read and share human experiences. Read Full Bio SEJ STAFF Roger Montti Owner - Martinibuster.com at Martinibuster.com I have 25 years hands-on experience in SEO, evolving along with the search engines by keeping up with the latest ... Learn how to connect search, AI, and PPC into one unstoppable strategy.
Source: Search Engine Journal
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