Good catch Swell Sad to see our board is apparently being infested by perhaps something like National network FAKE stuff!! Only difference seems to be the cowards are hiding behind screen names--the nationals do not !!!

KEEP ROLLING FELLA

Why do these bot followers matter so much? I don't get it at all.

Well for one thing the creators of a lot of these bots steal the photos, names and hometowns of legitimate Twitter users or other unsuspecting victims and make minor tweaks to them to create their fake Twitter bot profiles. It is identity theft on an industrial scale.

Want proof that hits close to Ramblermania home?

I came across this recent follower of
Loyola Men's Basketball:

https://mobile.twitter.com/Earl12633003

I thought "Earl" looked familiar. To confirm my suspicion I wrote an email....to our own Rambler63.
Sure enough Rambler63 wrote back that yes the photo "Earl" used in his fake Twitter account profile was actually one of Rambler63, taken at a conference in 2015 and stolen from Facebook online.
Here it is, courtesy of '63:

https://m.facebook.com/ConnectTransit/p ... =3&theater

So as far as I'm concerned if you're okay with all these fake Twitter bot followers you're okay with identity theft and fraud in the service of inflating Rambler Basketball's apparent online popularity. To be willing to compromise one's scruples for such a puny goal is, as our beloved President might put it: "Sad".

On a lighter note and on the positive side, this Twitterbot attack has gifted us with a new nickname for Rambler63: "Grandpa Earl".

I think it's instructive to contrast the lists of followers of the official Loyola Men's Basketball Twitter account with the unofficial Porter's Jacket Twitter account.

https://mobile.twitter.com/RamblersMBB? ... r%5Eauthor

https://mobile.twitter.com/PortersJacke ... r%5Eauthor

Porter's Jacket's list of followers looks like what you would expect of a Twitter account devoted to Rambler basketball. It is a healthy mixture of Rambler fans, Loyola students, Loyola alumni, Chicago sports enthusiasts, basketball junkies, recruiting prospects and wannabies, and many miscellaneous types. The common denominator for the vast majority is that you can understand from their Twitter account profile and activity why they might want to follow Porter's Jacket. The bottom line is that the followers come across as real people.(Because they are.) It feels like a real community of people with shared interests. It's a nice feeling.

Contrast this with the recent followers of the official account. The great majority of these are obvious bots, many in a foreign language originating ostensibly from places like Korea, Dubai, Ecuador and God knows where else. Nothing in their (fake) Twitter profiles gives the remotest hint that they might have a genuine interest in Rambler basketball. It doesn't feel like a community; it comes across as nothing more than the random and sterile result of computer algorithms at work. It is not a nice feeling. For me anyway.

It looks like Porter's Jacket (unlike the official site) may actually monitor its Followers List and purge Twitter Bots to achieve its clean and healthy list. At least that's what I infer from the case of one Twitter Bot account which follows both the official Loyola Basketball account and Porter's Jacket.

https://mobile.twitter.com/AdamD2557

AdamD shows up in the list of followers for the official site, but is nowhere to be seen on Jacket's list of followers. I'm assuming that's because Jacket recognized AdamD as a fake bot and took the time to purge him from the list.

I think a garden analogy works here. If you want a nice healthy garden filled with a variety of beautiful plants you've got to cultivate it and pull out the weeds regularly or they will take over. That seems to be what's happening at The Loyola Men's Basketball Twitter account.

Get off your ass and clean up your Followers List!

For what it's worth we actually don't purge followers and definitely have had our share of bot followers in the past. Given that our account is far smaller (~2,200) than the tens of thousands of followers that follow the official accounts we draw far fewer bots.

Ultimately, it's up to twitter to delete bot accounts and they certainly do in cycles as we've seen our followers decrease by a noticeable margin (10 or so) from time to time. I'm guessing since the main account has so many followers it's harder to track that. Ultimately it doesn't really harm us our or our followers; just a symptom of twitter at the moment. I'd guess blue blood schools and pro teams are even worse.

Thanks for the information. I wonder why AdamD doesn't show up on your list of followers.

You guys know more about how Twitter works than me, but I'm not sure I agree with you that an account holder should just take a laissez faire attitude about bots and let Twitter do the purging, especially if there is a sudden upsurge in bot activity on the account.
Oh well, I guess this discussion has run its course without accomplishing anything.
I still cringe when Iook at the the official account's list of mostly fake followers. I know if I was in charge of that account I'd purge the crap out of it.

I knew you were uncomfortable with the Final Four run, swella. Hey, I got used to having an entire row to myself at Gentile, too. But the new order is better.

As for Twitter, it's still mostly our smallish Rambler community that interacts there. The bots don't really affect anyone else who is a follower aside from seeing inflated Retweet and Follower counts. Not to say that I approve of bots, mind you. Stealing JCT's picture is particularly disturbing. But I tend to agree with the Jacket that it should be up to Twitter to get its platform in order. Their answer to every question about bots, fake news, threats, harassment, doxxing, etc. seems to be that it's up to users to self-police. That seems a bit absurd given that Twitter could seemingly build tools that address those problems and create a better place for people to interact. But, I guess like Richard Roeper buying fake followers, Twitter is more interested in having as many "users" as possible. Real or not.

_________________
MBB Scholarship Chart

It looks like Twitter purged Twitter bot "Earl" after Rambler63 reported the use of his stolen photo on Earl's profile. So I guess this thread accomplished something after all...

One Twitter bot down, 1.5 billion to go!

On edit: I keep forgetting that Rambler63 now goes by "JCT". To me he will always be "Grandpa Earl".

Bump.

Just so you know, 18 out of the last 19 followers have been bots, including "Regina George- Sex Model" and "(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)", whose screen name is in Arabic but who Tweets, oddly enough, in Spanish.