This has been obvious since the 2017 report by Homeland Security about the Russian disinformation campaign:[1]
> Bots are computer algorithms designed to execute specific online tasks autonomously and repetitively. They simulate the behavior of human beings in social networks, interacting with other users and sharing information and messages. Millions of bots spread information on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. According to a 2017 estimate, there were 23 million bots on Twitter (around 8.5% of all Twitter accounts), 140 million bots on Facebook (up to 5.5% of all Facebook accounts) and approximately 27 million bots on Instagram (8.2% of all Instagram accounts). These three platforms alone contained 190 million bots—more than half the number of people who live in the entire United States.
I've been wondering (and posting on HN about it) this exact topic for years. All those bots are pretending to be online users and all of them doing everything possible to circumvent detection, including consuming ads.
I would bet that most big advertisers have contractual rebates and reimbursements covering the fake ads - there's no way they'd stand for this sort of graft filling Google and Facebooks bank accounts while they paid millions for ads to fake users.
It's the smaller advertisers that get really shafted. Some small franchise or website buying a few thousand ads only to get little in the way of return on their investment. They have no way to detect the false impressions and rely on the various ad networks to detect bots, of which they have zero incentive to do.
I'm amazed it's taken this long for any news to come out about this, and even more amazed Congress and law enforcement haven't been involved yet. Again, look at the numbers above - this is a huge number of fake users and that only covers the disinformation efforts. Imagine the various networks out there that are focused purely on generating ad revenue and nothing else.
> Bots are computer algorithms designed to execute specific online tasks autonomously and repetitively. They simulate the behavior of human beings in social networks, interacting with other users and sharing information and messages. Millions of bots spread information on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. According to a 2017 estimate, there were 23 million bots on Twitter (around 8.5% of all Twitter accounts), 140 million bots on Facebook (up to 5.5% of all Facebook accounts) and approximately 27 million bots on Instagram (8.2% of all Instagram accounts). These three platforms alone contained 190 million bots—more than half the number of people who live in the entire United States.
I've been wondering (and posting on HN about it) this exact topic for years. All those bots are pretending to be online users and all of them doing everything possible to circumvent detection, including consuming ads.
I would bet that most big advertisers have contractual rebates and reimbursements covering the fake ads - there's no way they'd stand for this sort of graft filling Google and Facebooks bank accounts while they paid millions for ads to fake users.
It's the smaller advertisers that get really shafted. Some small franchise or website buying a few thousand ads only to get little in the way of return on their investment. They have no way to detect the false impressions and rely on the various ad networks to detect bots, of which they have zero incentive to do.
I'm amazed it's taken this long for any news to come out about this, and even more amazed Congress and law enforcement haven't been involved yet. Again, look at the numbers above - this is a huge number of fake users and that only covers the disinformation efforts. Imagine the various networks out there that are focused purely on generating ad revenue and nothing else.
1. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/ia/ia_c...