Attack of the Bots!! Twitter and its fake accounts problem

Just read a fascinating article;

“The Influence and Deception of Twitter: The Authenticity of the Narrative and Slacktivism in the Australian Electoral Process”
by the following people
Benjamin Waugh, Maldini Abdipanah, Omid Hashemi, Shaquille A. Rahman and David M. Cook, all from Edith Cowan University,

While I would quibble with their definition of slacktivism, I have to say hats off to them for the work, which is about the fake accounts/buying followers scam. Their particular focus was on how it might be used to help win elections…

“Twitter estimated that at the end of September 2013 there were approximately 10.75 million fake users (D’Yonfro, 2013) in the form of fake accounts, or accounts belonging to people with multiple personas (USSEC, 2013; Yarow, 2013).”

Well, just in the last hour I have had three follows from improbably good looking women who have rather wide interests and tweet a lot of spam. Gee, d’yathink they are bots?!