Tuesday 29 October 2013

How comping tweet bots work

NOTE I'm not really advocating that you should do this, for reasons I'll explain at the end, but I wanted to see how a retweet bot works so I had a play.

You may have noticed during the week from October 20th to 27th, some strange retweets appeared in my Twitter timeline, mentioning sausages and/or chips. I was doing some testing for this post, and had gone away from home for a week without switching off the test I'd set up. And I didn't have the right info with me to switch it off, so had to go through my tweets every day, undoing all the retweets I could find.

Lots of the competitions on Twitter simply ask you to retweet a particular tweet. Unfortunately, this is all too easy to automate, suing various programmes and apps, for instance one called Round Team.

You'll see increasing numbers of retweet comps being entered by "people" who appear to be tweeting over and over again, 24 hours a day. They never interact with anyone, never appear to take breaks to eat and sleep and yet still win prizes - even though they may have never even visited Twitter on the day they entered! 

I tested one of these bots using the words "sausages" and "chips" but for competition entries they would choose #competition or one appropriate to a particular day like #WinningWednesday or #FreebieFriday

Once a retweet bot is set up it will look for and retweet any tweet containing the words you have specified.

Why am I advising you against doing this? Well, there are several reasons:
  • Not all competitions on Twitter are simple retweet ones - you might find yourself retweeting ones that need you to give an answer or follow a link to an entry page
  • Not all competitions on Twitter are open to the UK - tweets in English using common comping hashtags commonly come from the USA, the Republic of Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Australia and South Africa, so you may find yourself entering competitions you can't win, especially if you've paid the small fee to become a subscriber and retweet from Everyone. It's not a problem if you use the Followed option and have been careful about who you follow.
  • If you follow a lot of other compers and they retweet by the copy and paste method rather than using the retweet button, you may find yourself retweeting their entries and upsetting them.
  • It takes away the chat and interaction that is really the whole point of Twitter. And what's more, if you don't chat or interact, your tweets may be filtered out of Twitter search for being poor quality, and that means you reduce your chances of winning.  

NOTE -  although the original post was really intended to explain to compers how some people are using bots to cheat, so that they knew what to look out for, and I tried to make it very clear that I did NOT endorse or recommend it in any way, it appears to have upset some people. I still feel that it is VERY important for compers  and promoters alike to know what is going on - ignorance is no protection against cheats. And I'm quite certain that anyone who wins regularly using a bot would be using a MUCH more sophisticated system than the one mentioned above. However I have removed the link to the bot-creating site and the information about how to set it up.

I've written a much more detailed article about how to recognise when tweets are coming from a bot, which you will find here. It also includes advice for promoters on how to "bot-proof" a competition. If you see a competition being won by a bot, I suggest sending the promoter a link to that article.

One final bot-spotting tip, whish appears to only work on Tweet Deck - if you click on the word "details" at the bottom of a tweet, it will tell you how the tweet was sent - through Twitter web client, a phone app, Tweet Deck, Hootsuite and so on. If it was sent  using an app such as Round Team it will show up there. One little tip that might help promoters to identify and block entries coming from bots!


33 comments :

  1. Get this article removed - there's already too many people using that bot!!!

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  2. Isn't this cheating? Already there are ppl winning loads of times without any effort (or interest in the promoters) by using this bot. It just makes compers look bad :(

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  3. Why even advertise promote this? It's cheating and only serves to piss people off.

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  4. I'd like to make a few points in reply to the above comments
    1. The main purpose of this article it to show people that it CAN be done, so that when they spot a bot tweeting comps they can recognise it
    2. a comping cheat would use something FAR more sophisticated than this - this is just a quick and convenient tool for a casual user
    3. When a blog post is ignored for 8 months and then suddenly gets comments from three apparently different people in the space of a few minutes, it usually means the same person has commented with three separate IDs. The use of multiple IDs is generally a sign of a comping cheat.

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  5. Those are 3 separate people hun but your blog post has been mentioned on a Facebook group as the reason to why people are using the bot. Looks like your getting the blame as if you are condoning it.

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    1. Thanks for clarifying - and apologies to the people who I thought were all one. I hoped it was clear from the post that I an NOT condoning it. But surely it is better for compers to understand what they are up against and how cheats operate than to carry on in ignorance, not knowing how easy it is to cheat?

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  6. So if I posted something showing how to clone someone else's credit card, but say you shouldn't do it - that's OK then is it?

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    1. No, but if you posted something that gave people an idea how it was done, in order for them to spot it happening and protect themselves, that would be an excellent idea. And that is exactly what I was hoping to achieve with this article.

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    2. If that is so, why wasn't it entitled "how to spot a comping bot cheat" and not "how to set up your own comping tweet bot" with no mention of what to look out for nor how to protect yourself? And to then ask if anyone had won from it?

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    3. I'm sorry that it wasn't clear - I'd been chatting with friends about it and this is the result of the conversation. It hadn't really occurred to me that other people were going to read it or act on it. I do see everyone's point though. I've been hearing some things today about this post having been mentioned in a Facebook group where a cheat has been uncovered. If the information I gave really HAS been used for cheating, I am very, very sorry. I will leave this post up until you reply to say you have seen this, and then I will delete the post. Those of you who know me personally will know that I have very high standards of coming ethics and would never wish to b e associated with any form of cheating.

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    4. Hi Jane, thanks for the reply, I don't believe those people have necessarily seen this post then gone on to cheat from it nor am I questioning your ethics and I'm sure this tool is very handy for various things,. It's also a very interesting article and until yesterday I'd not even heard of this bot (I'm quite new and uninformed about modern technology), it seems to me, however, that it is written from a viewpoint on how to set one up and use it and therefore perhaps shouldn't be on a comping blog in this format, perhaps it just needs to be tweaked and not removed.

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    5. I'll sleep,on it and see how I feel in the morning, but I suspect tonight I'll be lying awake worrying that somebody may have used my advice as a basis for cheating.

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  7. And finally, if you see a winner who you know to be a comping bot, you could point the promoter in the direction of this post to show them that it happens, and to my post aimed at promoters http://www.compersgrapevine.co.uk/2012/11/is-that-twitter-winner-human-being.html which tells them how to spot bot users and how to arrange their competitions in a way that makes it impossible for a bot to win

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  8. I've spoken to @RoundTeam on Twitter - they want names of people who are using the program to enter comps - "violators" they call them - maybe worth a mention somewhere?

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    1. Good idea. It's beginning to look as if I should keep,the post here, but heavily edited, and with more reference to my post telling promoters how to recognise entries made by a bot.

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  9. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    1. Hide behind anonymity! COWARD, who doesn't have the courage to show their real name.

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    2. Looks like a bitter person, who perhaps was booted out of Conned, is at it again, lol

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    3. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    4. If a commenter wishes to be abusive but doesn't have the courage to use their name, I don't think they deserve the right to comment.

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  10. Thank you for taking the time to edit it

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  11. you know the post on conned is quite relevant its such a shame that i cant read it as i seem to be blocked by the poster, which is quite ashame as I have come to notice a few in that group blocking me for reasons unknown to me as I have never spoken to said people!. What happens when i need help?

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  12. I cant believe your bitching on a post that was intended to help. Pathetic!! Just like its pathetic when you go shooting your mouth off on pages because YOU dont like how something is being run. If YOU misread the article thats YOUR problem. I done thibk jane did anything wrong. No longer satisfied tearing pages down because they happen to run a vlting competition you now have to go on blogs. Real sad. Im sorry you edited it jane, you shouldnt have had to just to please those idiots. It was an informative post in the first place x

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    1. Ignore the typos lol phone has a mind of its own :)

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    2. Hi, Michelle, firstly the article was not misread, it was entitled "how to set up your own comping tweet bot"
      and just showed you how to do just that, whether you feel using one is cheating or not is a different matter. Secondly, when people are 'bitching' as you put it, about voting comps are run etc, it's because they want it to be a level playing field and think the promoters may be unaware of what could happen, as far as I'm aware, ( Not saying that I agree with how people go about it as I haven't really seen what they do), so that it's fair for everyone, to avoid disappointment for people maybe putting in lots of effort only to be beaten by someone who maybe didn't but for example, bought votes - don't you want that too?

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    3. I appriciate your reply but janes blog is being attacked left right and centre by people who only pop up when they want to start trouble. No i dont paticually care if people are cheating. I have much better things to concern myself with. The abuse that all the so called comping police give people is disgusting. Only have to look back to everything thatd happened with honest comping and afterwards to see what i mean. Whether someone is cheating or not there no justifiable reason that any perso n should go out of their way to cause trouble for anyone else. Take this post for example. Its a year old and because you all think you have some god given right to police things, a post which has given some insight is being ripped to shreds all iver one group. Jane does not deserve it. If you all followed her blog in the first place you would have seen from the posts she did not condone the use of this bot. You all jumped in at the end of a conversation demsnding she remove it/edit it or just generally making her feel bad. One person, just one, has been caught. There is no proof that this post is making people want to use a bot to comp on twitter. Im not going to cause an argument on janes blog, i respect jane too much too do that but its like watching a 2 year old throw a paddy after another child takes their toy when you lot go off on one. Its old and boring

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  13. Am I the only one that see's this 'bot' as no different to twit ninja ect or whatever they are called now? Neither of those sites need more than a click of a button to enter so no interaction with the company whatsoever no one is physically going to their twitter page to look for the comp tweet ect. Yet plenty of compers use those sites. Where is the difference? Why is one frowned upon and another ok?

    As for having a pop at the blog, chill out! There are articles on the web on how to build a bomb, It doesn't mean anyone reads it and thinks 'oh great idea I am free saturday' people may well use this article in that way, but it's called choice. Neither the article, nor the folk using this bot thing are breaking any laws that I am aware or hurting anyone so leave it be, some folk will cheat, some will be annoyed at said cheating but ultimately I have no right to tell you not to be annoyed anymore than you have the right to tell someone not to use it or a blog not to post about it.

    TLDR? leave the keyboard, there is a big wide world out there and the weather is nice!

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    1. Hi, Gareth, I personally think Twit Ninja and their ilk are different in the fact that you physically go through looking at each comp and deciding whether to enter or not and admittedly you don't actually visit the promoter's page but there's not much more interaction, if any more, when you just retweet their comp tweet either, whereas on the not you just press 'go' and you can go too. Everyone's going to have their own opinions on what they classify as cheating and where they draw the line.
      As for the article itself, yes there will be articles about building bombs or whatever but it's where they are that makes the difference - you wouldn't expect to find how to build a bomb on a school website, for example.
      As for chilling out, I seem to remember you getting extremely annoyed when you thought there were votes being bought which meant you came second in a comp, don't know if it was against their T's&C's but they kept their prize, as I recall, but they weren't breaking any laws or hurting anyone were they?
      P.S. it's raining here :)

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    2. No, and it taught me to chill out too.(and I got a healthy 'consolation' prize from the promoters) I just don't see why folk get all het up over all this. it really isn't a big deal. It's a hobby. There seems to be a small group of folk that feel it's their right to police comping when it's really not. By all means, don't read the article, or use the bot or enter voting comps or have 'cheats on your friends list but no one has ever actually explained to me why they feel they have a right to tell others how to enjoy their hobby.Right or wrong it's surely no one elses business?

      As for Twit ninja ect. Obviously it's down to choice but for me, it really isn't any different. I am sure if you asked 100 promoters 90+ wouldn't be chuffed with the idea.

      And it's now raining here too! I think my sarcasm jinxed the weather! I won't carry on the argument as I have a brick wall just waiting for a head to be banged against it. (Nothing personal, Dianne, your one of the more rational ones!)

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  14. I am now closing comments for this post.

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