1 “Automated Meme Magic: An Exploration into the Implementations and Imaginings of Bots on Reddit” Jonathan Murthy | [email protected] | 2018 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgments......................................................................................................................................3 Abstract......................................................................................................................................................4 1.2 Research Questions.........................................................................................................................6 1.2.1 Why Reddit..............................................................................................................................7 1.2.2 Bots..........................................................................................................................................9 1.3 Outline...........................................................................................................................................10 2 Bot Research.........................................................................................................................................11 2.1. Functional Bots.............................................................................................................................13 2.2 Harmful Bots.................................................................................................................................14 2.2.1 The Rise of Socialbots...........................................................................................................16 2.2.2 The Rise of Political Bots and Computational Propaganda...................................................19 2.3 Sockpuppets and Cyborgs.............................................................................................................21 3 Reddit....................................................................................................................................................23 3. 1 Background on Reddit Structure, History, and Culture................................................................23 3.2 Reddit’s Toxic Technocultures, Gamergate, The Fappening....................................................26 2.2.2 /r/The_Donald........................................................................................................................28 2.2.3 Reddit Bots............................................................................................................................29 3.2 Independent Research by Redditors..............................................................................................31 3.2.1 Reddit Transparency..............................................................................................................37 4 Methodology and Findings...................................................................................................................38 4..1 Google Search Findings...............................................................................................................40 4.2 Bot Lists........................................................................................................................................51 5 Discussion.............................................................................................................................................65 5.1 Automation, Technology, Culture, and Economics.......................................................................65 5.2 Taxonomy of Bots.........................................................................................................................66 5.2.1 Visible bots............................................................................................................................67 5.2.2 Invisible Bots.........................................................................................................................68 5.3 Suggestions....................................................................................................................................68 6 Conclusion............................................................................................................................................70 Works Cited..............................................................................................................................................72 3 Acknowledgments There are several people I would like to acknowledge and thank for their support, encouragement, and insights. First, I would like to thank all the professors and students I have had the pleasure of working with over the course of this program. Marc Tuters, my thesis supervisor, who encouraged me to pursue this research. Sal Hagen, for writing various SQL scripts which helped me find interesting data. My mom, for the lifelong, love, and support she has given me over the years. To my sisters and brother who encourage me to follow my dreams. To my father, who is no longer with us and the unconditional pride he had for me. And to Laura, for talking to me everyday, for challenging me, loving me, being patient with me, and the amount of growth I have experienced because of you. 4 Abstract The allegations of bots being used as deceptive, persuasive, manipulative, unseen, networked machines, seeded inside digital environments to control, guide, subvert, or otherwise alter the public discourse, is a prevalent topic around the areas of new media, political science, human-computer interaction, journalism, computational propaganda, science and technology studies, and many other areas of interest. Recent instances where bots have arisen and have caused alarm are typically situated around political elections, but also have been seen in some areas related to cryptocurrencies. The effects of bots are most commonly seen via social networking sites where they are capable of exploiting homophilic algorithms and direct content toward particular groups of people. Essentially, visibility is a means toward shifting normative discourse, maintaining popularity or controlling the circulation of a particular piece of information is susceptible to manipulation. Visibility is also directly linked to profit as well. This thesis will be an attempt to present the history of bot research, classifications for different bots which display specific attributes, and background on the content aggregator site Reddit.com. A first focal point of this thesis will be the use of social bots, political bots, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies which entails the use of marketing techniques which seem at odds with Reddit’s behavioral policy. The second focus will revolve around particularities of Reddit and how bots are used on the site. Discussion points will focus on a taxonomy of the observed bots on Reddit, comments and SEO models, Reddit’s culture and internal governance, and the political, economic, and cultural implications of bot and bot like activity. Less research has been considered for Reddit as a point of investigation. Hopefully, this thesis will act as a stepping stone into further research on an increasingly prevalent online environment and topic. 5 1 Introduction Is it possible that I did not write this thesis? I, Jonathan Murthy? Or, perhaps, is it possible that someone else wrote it? Is it possible that something else wrote it? If you had an infinite amount of monkeys typing at an infinite number of typewriters, typing words at random, could they not write this thesis? Could my digital profile be fabricated and used to gain credibility? Could my style of writing be derived from a corpus of previously consumed works around a particular area of interest in order to mimic natural knowledgeable language? How much would it take to convince you that I am a human being presenting credible information? In thinking about these questions (despite their hyperbolic nature), we can then think, ‘what is required, technically speaking, to mediate exploitable abstractions between you and I’, and (perhaps more importantly) ‘why would I do this?’ Despite these ponderings, sowing seeds of doubt toward me and this thesis’ authenticity is not what this thesis is about, but attempts to acts as an image to enter into a world of algorithmically mediated communication, automation, and online identities. This is then compounded by the circulation of misinformation, fake news, visibility manipulation, directed marketing, and other issues which concern public discourse around digital media. While there are other factors that can contribute to these same issues, I will be focusing on what is colloquially referred to as ‘bots’, ‘botnets’. But what exactly are bots and what are they capable of doing? In computing, a bot is “an autonomous program on a network (especially the Internet) that can interact with computer systems or users, especially one designed to respond or behave like a player in an adventure game (Google.com). The term’ bot’ is a shortening of the word robot, derived from the Czech ‘robota’ meaning “forced Labor” (Google.com), and this seems to be in reference to the ability programmability of bots (Geiger, 2014). These three notions (that bots interact with both humans and computers, that they are designed to mimic human behavior, and can automate tasks) makes for a precarious state of affairs regarding what we see online and what information get circulated (Wooley and Howard, 2016; Howard et al., 2017; Forelle, 2015). Various industries