Parents for Dog Bite Awareness

Let’s talk about bot/shill/troll accounts today. If you’re well versed, feel free to skip this post. 

#Dogbiteawareness 

I’m going to do this because I see people fall for fake accounts every day on here. 

What are some signs of a fake account? 🙌

Some fake accounts can be extremely elaborate, especially for refined jobs such as scientific experiments. So simply bc someone looks real doesn’t mean they are real. But for this post, we will address the low hanging fruits that are regularly confusing users. 

The lowest quality fakes usually have a themed profile photo, no cover photo, and few or no friends. They also have names that follow certain patterns or are meaningless. Often, you’ll find the names are stereotyped to the demographic that they’re mimicking. 

The themed profile photos tend to follow a pattern that seems connected to the chosen topic. Some IT professionals suggest this is how AI sorts the bots but that’s a deeper talk for another day. 

In the dog topic, men tend to have car/motorcycle photos and women tend to have horse photos. The horror movie photos also often show up in the general photo albums on both types even if they aren’t profile photos. 

What is the goal of a fake account?

Lots of reasons exist, some even beyond our focus, such as fake accounts paid to artificially boost scam pages or promote sponsored products. 

The two main reasons we see in the dog attack topic are:

1 To ragebait unsuspecting users into responding in a way that can be reported or used. 

This means they post a triggering comment hoping you fall for it and respond unprofessionally. Then they can report you so that you’re punished or silenced. 

Or, if you respond all crazed and angry, they can screenshot it to prove “anti pit people are violent and hate dogs.”

It means you need to take responsibility for how you react on social media to continue being an effective safety advocate. Stop. Breathe. Rethink your replies. Recognize it’s fake. Respond professionally to help lurkers or simply report/block and move on silently. 

2 To promote a narrative about the dogs that manipulates vulnerable users into believe false ideals and thus shapes dog buying behavior. 

You’ll often catch this bc they repeat phrases like parrots or concoct vague but positive selling points. This is a form of marketing called SEO. What they’re doing is using keywords repeatedly to connect a misinformed selling point to the product (dogs.) 

This is a potently effective marketing technique, especially for people who are vulnerable to psychological influence. It also shapes how the topic appears on social media to create an overall idea that appears real bc it takes over or dominates newsfeeds. 

Key takeaway:

Not everyone on here is genuine, or even a real human. It’s up to you to regulate your comments and to work steadily on combatting marketing tactics that mislead at risk users into making bad buying decisions. Stay focused on the bigger goals and don’t let yourself fall for bait. 

-Greg #PFDBA Admin 

#DBA #onlinesafety #digitalmarketing #ai #bots #aspd #artificial #consumersafety #informedconsent