Article:http://www.technewsworld.com/story/84044.html With the new age of mass political media in the forms of Twitter, Facebook, and others; current 2016 presidential nominees utilize automated bots to amass support. John Mello of TechNewsWorld examines these bots and “manufactured” traffic in "Bot Armies Boost Candidates' Popularity on Twitter" that influence Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton support bases. Researchers tracked automated twitter accounts and found pro-Trump hashtags were bot created one-third of the time as opposed to one-fifth of the time for Clinton (Mello 2016, 1). From a security dimension, it would seem highly probable that a DDoS attack could occur on these accounts quite easily to influence the election outcome. A cyber security attack is also probable on electronic vote counting machines. Some states may use ancient tabulation programs that run on older operating systems where security patches are improbable. This is problematic to accurate vote counting. Bots are not just political mechanisms. Web spiders are bots that search engines use to keep indexes modern (Mello 2016, 1). But, bots can “distort democracy” if utilized for propaganda tactics, specifically counterfeit political speech (Mello 2016, 1). As public opinion and fraud become more known in election cycles, I think phony political statements driven by bots will only produce greater cyberattacks and greater political divisiveness. Although, I do believe bots can be used for good such as updating mundane business information on a company’s website to keep data current. Political bots are perhaps the most deceiving. Governments worldwide use these bots to manipulate public opinion and intensify political issues (Mello 2016, 1). People do not realize that political polls and trends can be controlled and manipulated by bots. I think that elections are based on false “advertising.” People need to ignore political bots in polarized politics and look at issues that are meant to be seen. Hopefully, future presidential elections will discontinue inconsistent propaganda and improve voting cyber security to eliminate hacking armies. Reference: Jr., By John P. Mello. "Bot Armies Boost Candidates' Popularity on Twitter." Bot Armies Boost Candidates' Popularity on Twitter. N.p., 29 Oct. 2016. Web. 08 Nov. 2016.
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