Guest essay by Eric Worrall
John Cook and Lewandowsky appear to have moved on from claiming climate skeptics are mentally defective to a new position, a claim that climate skeptics don’t actually exist, that we are mostly software masquerading as humans.
Revealed: quarter of all tweets about climate crisis produced by bots
Draft of Brown study says findings suggest ‘substantial impact of mechanized bots in amplifying denialist messages’
Oliver Milman in New York @olliemilman
Fri 21 Feb 2020 19.00 AEDTThe social media conversation over the climate crisis is being reshaped by an army of automated Twitter bots, with a new analysis finding that a quarter of all tweets about climate on an average day are produced by bots, the Guardian can reveal.
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The study of Twitter bots and climate was undertaken by Brown University and has yet to be published. Bots are a type of software that can be directed to autonomously tweet, retweet, like or direct message on Twitter, under the guise of a human-fronted account.
“These findings suggest a substantial impact of mechanized bots in amplifying denialist messages about climate change, including support for Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement,” states the draft study, seen by the Guardian.
…
Thomas Marlow, a PhD candidate at Brown who led the study, said the research came about as he and his colleagues are “always kind of wondering why there’s persistent levels of denial about something that the science is more or less settled on”.
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Marlow said he was surprised that bots were responsible for a quarter of climate tweets on an average day. “I was like, ‘Wow that seems really high,’” he said.
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Stephan Lewandowsky, an academic at the University of Bristol who co-authored the research, said he was “not at all surprised” at the Brown University study due to his own interactions with climate-related messages on Twitter.
“More often than not, they turn out to have all the fingerprints of bots,” he said. “The more denialist trolls are out there, the more likely people will think that there is a diversity of opinion and hence will weaken their support for climate science.
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John Cook, an Australian cognitive scientist and co-author with Lewandowsky, said that bots are “dangerous and potentially influential”, with evidence showing that when people are exposed to facts and misinformation they are often left misled.
“This is one of the most insidious and dangerous elements of misinformation spread by bots – not just that misinformation is convincing to people but that just the mere existence of misinformation in social networks can cause people to trust accurate information less or disengage from the facts,” Cook said.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/21/climate-tweets-twitter-bots-analysis
If only those pesky bot writers would donate their software services to climate modellers.
Now if you will all excuse me, I have adjust my circuits.
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The mentality that produced this study is the same as that refusing to accept millions of Americans support Trump and if it wasn’t for Russian interference and Russian bots the thousands who show up at Trump’s campaign rallies would not be there and the tens of millions who voted for him would not have voted for him.
The same side is pushing the narrative that Trump is a Russian Operative. All of it is hilarious……until you realize they are serious and millions believe the BS, just like they will believe this absurdity. But they do need some kind of salve on their cognitive dissonance.
I admit that I’m not too bright, but I am live flesh and blood. I’m not too sure about Griff though.
You never see Cook and Lewandowsky here at WUWT defending their “science”.
Damn. Busted. I am a bot. Not only am I a climate denier bot, I am a whisky drinking, cigar smoking bot. My programming is simple, but effective. Should you have undrunk whisky and/or unsmoked cigars, I can be rented for a nominal fee.
Ian
Is your real name “Bender?”
I wouldn’t give two bots … er … bits for this study.
It’s a classic strategy, you see authoritarian governments resort to it all the time and highlighted in 1984 by George Orwell.
Your disagreement is not valid or real because it’s a paid for conspiracy and that diminishes you and your view. It’s just another Nick Stokes you define all disagreement as a paid for bot and therefore there is no opposition and everyone agrees except the one person writing the bots.
Orwell made a famous quote against this sort of subversive attack
I had a Bladerunner flashback: how soon before we have special police searching out and destroying those rogue “bots”? All in the public interest, of course.
Why don’t they look on the bright side.
According to the “settled science” in less than 12 years they’ll be nobody left for the bots to twitter with.
The AOC blot said so.
What’s twitter? Never even used it.
WXcycles
Get with it! How can the Russians influence you if you don’t use Twitter? You’re not doing your civic duty to be controlled if you avoid the ‘bot factory.
All written by bots and 32 000 yo white men.
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/01/lewandowsky-peer-reviewed-study-includes-someone-32757-years-old/
It’s amazing just what those guys will do for attention. I’ll bet there aren’t many humans that will punlicly admit to failing the Turing test.
spelling publicly
I am not a bot.
michael
I’ll bet you did that purposely to appear fallible and make it look like you are human.
I wonder if the turkeys at SS have thought to do a similar investigation on climate alarmist tweets. They would likely find that 75% are from bots.
Those that don’t think or profit off non-thinking, the bots, are now calling we that think, “bots.”
“Crimestop” and “thoughtcrime” to follow shortly.
More Lou paper.
CO2 is 2 thirds oxygen pollution….
From the article: ““More often than not, they turn out to have all the fingerprints of bots,” he said. “The more denialist trolls are out there, the more likely people will think that there is a diversity of opinion and hence will weaken their support for climate science.”
Lewandowsky is afraid that his CAGW propaganda is not going to be as effective if there are a lot of “denialists” out there weakening the support for Lewandowsky and Cook’s propaganda.
I don’t believe this claim about skeptic bots. I think we should make Lewandowsky and Cook prove these outrageous claims.
If 25 percent of climate change posts are bots, then why are there never any bots over here on WUWT?
Or are the bots just a problem on Twitter? I don’t do Twitter so maybe that’s why I never run across a bot.
We want to see the evidence for these skeptic bots. And we also want to see the evidence that Russian bots are interfering in the U.S. elections. Both these claims are on shaky ground.
The New York Times breaks a story claiming that an intelligence briefing for the House of Representatives said that the Russians were again interfering in the U.S. elections and were doing so in favor of Trump.
Well, naturally, Adam Schiff, the House Intelliegence chairman leaked this little tidbit of info to the New York Times and they printed it in an effort to continue to smear Trump.
But it turns out that over a month ago the Bernie Sanders campaign was notified that the Russians were interfering in the U.S. elections and were doing so to favor Bernie! Funny, but this bit of information was never printed in the Leftwing media until the day after the NYT printed that hit piece on Trump.
So, just like in 2016, the Russians are interfering in our elections by showing support for more than one candidate. In 2016, the Russians organized a couple of demonstrations. One was in favor of Trump and one was in favor of Hillary, as an example.
Now, with the 2020 election coming up the Russians are again supporting more than one candidate, Trump and Sanders.
What the Russians are really trying to do is sow discord in the American political system, and they don’t really need bots or other activities to forward this goal of theirs, all they have to do is sit back and let the Radical Democrats sow as much discord as they can, using Russian interference as their excuse.
The Mueller report showed very little Russian activity in the 2016 elections. Certainly not enough to sway the election one way or the other. The only real success they had was getting the Democrats to go along with their narrative. The official word on Russian interference was they did not affect the election. The Democrats definitely disrupted the elections. The Russians not so much.
I want to see evidence for all these claims of bots and influence. Just saying it is so doesn’t make it so. Until then, I don’t believe these claims.
It turns out the intelligence briefing that supposedly claimed the Russians were trying to help Trump in the election was an Adam Schiff lie. Others who also attended that briefing said there was absolutely no mention of a connection to Trump.
So I guess the Democrats thought that the notification that Bernie got from the FBI about the Russians trying to help him in the elction was about to go public, so they jumped out ahead of it and put out the false claim that the Russians were trying to help Trump.
You have to hand it to the Left and the Deep State, they are pretty good at ginning up conspiracies. Of course, they have the Leftwing Media to trumpet all their lies. Without the Leftwing Media, sounding like the voice of authority, on their side, they would have nothing.
Should Trump launch an intelligence investigation into Bernie and the Russians and their possible collusion in the upcoming election? Think what the Democrats would say about that. They would be more than outraged. Yet that’s exactly what the Democrats did to Trump and are doing to Trump. Unsuccessfully, I might add.
‘Thomas Marlow, a PhD candidate at Brown who led the study, said the research came about as he and his colleagues are “always kind of wondering why there’s persistent levels of denial about something that the science is more or less settled on”.’
Wonder no more as who could possibly be a doubting Thomas in the presence of such a visionary?
“She saw what the rest of us did not want to see. It was as if she could see our CO2 emissions with her naked eye.”
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/greta-thunbergs-mother-reveals-teenagers-incredible-transformation/ar-BB10hjmf
Eschew impure thoughts Thomas and Gang as who could ever doubt that Pol Pot Unitopia shall prevail over the Poll Bots? Are you all shovel ready for the Great Leap Forward!
and then Lewandowsky says
Lewandowsky maths.
Has anyone been able to find an actual example of a climate consensus twitter account or post written by a bot?
If so, please answer with the url.
Sorry I meant example of climate consensus skeptic twitter account or post – but I’ll happily take all bot accounts posting predominantly about the climate system.
“John Cook, an Australian cognitive scientist and co-author with Lewandowsky, said that bots are “dangerous and potentially influential”,
The warmists have been creating and taking college classes on climate communications as well as having many semimars on this topic in order to sway skeptics (and to keep the science and resulting media reports from inadvertently giving us ammo).
Why don’t they just Create their own bots that Push their messages on us easily influenced skeptics and then problem solved, they’ll have their majority of believers needed to save the world!
(Cook is a scientist? Thought i read he was a cartoonist?)
Cook is a Climate Scientist just like Steve Mosher, you don’t actually need any qualifications you just claim the title. You get extra bonus points and become a climate scientist and expert if you write some lame piece of pseudoscience junk and get it published which both have done.
“John Cook, an Australian cognitive scientist and co-author with Lewandowsky, said that bots are “dangerous and potentially influential”,
How influential can a bot be if noone can find it? I keep hearing about all these bots and how influential they are/could be, yet I have never seen even one in all these years. So I would say from personal experience that a climate change bot has never influenced me, since as far as I can tell, they don’t exist.
Fully qualified lunatics. All they have to do is to give the URL of the bot and then work out who is paying for the service hosting the ‘bot’. This sounds like complete nonsense, who would develop or pay for such ludicrously ineffective thing?
Of course, the naivety of the research is sweet, like, how come people are thinking for themselves when we have been pushing the alarmist agitprop so hard?
I already knew that I am a bot.
Putin’s bots tell me that I am a bot every time I am trying to say anything resembling an observation of reality.
Same with climate change bots — they are programmed to call real people bots.
So, anybody but a paid liar is a bot. Got it.
I AM NOT A BOT
I am the owner of the Twitter account @petefrt cited as a suspected bot with 52K followers in a Guardian article (linked below) about the unpublished study of a Brown University student.
It’s my only Twitter account and I’ve had it for over 10 years, since 2008. My account was suspended Feb 21 after the study appeared in the Guardian and elsewhere. I’m in the process of appealing, as I am not a bot.
It seems a bot is anyone who questions climate change dogma.
“Revealed: quarter of all tweets about climate crisis produced by bots” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/21/climate-tweets-twitter-bots-analysis