BotOrNot checks the activity of a Twitter account and gives it a score based on how likely the account is to be a bot. Higher scores are more bot-like.
Have Twitter Bots Infiltrated the 2016 Election?
This isn’t the first time folks have speculated the Trump campaign hired bots to spread its candidate’s message. As for the Democrats, Hillary Clinton’s account reportedly has a million fake Twitter followers. While the numbers aren’t conclusive, it’s worth wondering: How much of the candidates’ popularity can be traced back to bots?
Elizabeth Warren Emerges to Attack Donald Trump on Twitter
I think Donald Trump needs to recognize that he’s the nominee of the Republican Party and his target is Hillary Clinton, not Elizabeth Warren or anyone else,” Mr. Williams said. “One of the main rules of politics is to never punch downwards, and he’s punching way downward by engaging with a liberal senator who’s not even on the ballot this year.”
Donald Trump Tweets Like a Latin American Strongman
Trump’s Twitter persona has felt like a revelation in American politics, generating constant commentary and a lot of free publicity (sorry). He’s embraced the medium with the self-assuredness and recklessness of a teenager, tweeting more and with fewer filters than any other American presidential candidate since Twitter’s launch in 2006. But what seems radical in the United States is par for the course in other parts of the world—ironically for someone who champions American exceptionalism, Trump has followed an approach employed by leftist Latin American leaders for years.
.. Federico Finchelstein, a professor of history and department chair at The New School, has recently argued that Trump fits into a mold of “post-fascist” populists, leaders who promote authoritarian democracies characterized in part by no mediation between the leader and the people. These types of leaders have flourished in Latin American countries since World War II, capitalizing on their populations’ desire to #MakeLatinAmericaGreatAgain and shake off their imperialist pasts to become economically and culturally independent.
.. Finchelstein points out that authoritarians’ embrace of Twitter is highly strategic: “They tend to regard independent reporters as deeply suspicious and even enemies, so they use technology as a means of achieving a direct connection.” Unmediated access to their public allows populists to emphasize their “outsider” status and downplay the importance of traditional institutions (a free press, other branches of government).
.. Institutional language—like the staid decorum of Obama’s tweets—becomes undesirable, the mark of a phony.
.. The danger of “real-talk” like Trump’s is that it erases much of what is valuable about a free press: skepticism, debate, accountability.
.. “At the same time that it provides a mirage of full participation, there’s not actually meaningful participation by citizens in the leader’s decisions. What a leader like Trump is asking is, Vote for me, because I know best what you should want. It’s a very authoritarian form of politics.”