Hundreds of bots clog X (Twitter) with hate messages against DANA in Valencia

In the last few days, X (Twitter) is filled with bots posting hate messages against DANA Valencia.. A situation that further complicates the attitude towards the disaster that has befallen Spain, which itself is marked by countless hoaxes, deceptions and all sorts of nonsense, both on social networks and in the media, which operate with zero rigor.

The use of bots in X (Twitter) as an escalation method is not new and is not limited to DANA Valencia. This happens quite often in almost any country in the world when issues arise that have a major impact on public opinion, or when events with global consequences occur, such as a presidential election or a natural disaster.

As for Valencia, a new report from Spanish newspaper sheds light on the affairs of hundreds Indian beads who, after DANA, began publishing hateful content in Spanish and Valencian. These are profiles that react to other posts about floods or share photos or videos of the disaster with messages. accusatory and conspiratorial it is directed against the authorities, the media, immigrants and any other figures or topics that may cause controversy and controversial comments.

As our director Eduardo Arcos clearly points out in his contribution to the above article, X (Twitter) bots are used to create paranoia, distort facts, and manipulate the public through their confirmation bias. But the story does not end there, since in the case of DANA Valencia it is also clear that many accounts publishing xenophobic tweets and hateful content in general are trying to take advantage of the situation.

X (Twitter) bots took advantage of the DANA disaster in Valencia

Report Spanish newspaper Reveals that the vast majority of Indian bots are posting hate messages about Valencia’s DANA on X (Twitter) They carry a verified badge. This is because those who manage them pay for an X Premium subscription, which has allowed anyone to get a blue tick since Elon Musk bought the social network.

There are two things that make paid verification very attractive to X (Twitter) bots. First, the platform pays all its subscribers based on the advertising revenue their posts generate. Second: accounts receive promote growth visibility of your answers.

Thanks to Valencia’s DANA, a large number of Indian accounts have emerged posting hate messages, even in Spanish and Valencian. Essentially, these X (Twitter) bots do the following: accumulate interactions to get as much money as possible from the social network. To do this, they use posts translated using Google Translate, created using artificial intelligence, or copied from other accounts that originally shared them.

Looking through the profiles in question, whose responses appear in almost any post about the disaster you can find on the platform, especially in the “For You” section, you can see that they do the same with every other trending topic. . It is therefore not surprising that his publications include texts in Spanish, Portuguese, English, Hindi or Arabic, among other languages.

Losing battle with bots

Many may think that posting on a social network may not be profitable enough to be such a hassle. However, experts believe that no matter how low the amounts paid to X (Twitter) may seem, they may be enough to inject a significant amount through botnets. Especially in countries where the local currency is devalued compared to the dollar..

When Elon Musk came to Twitter, he promised that he would fight bots. However, today the situation looks like this worse than ever. Any fairly regular user of a social network can see that the platform is full of accounts of this type. And those who have a profile protected by a lock usually face dozens and dozens of requests from subscribers who choose this formula.

The DANA disaster in Valencia was one of the most notorious and painful examples of agriculture Interactions can be achieved through X-bots (Twitter) and hoax promoters in general. A moment that the authorities could not leave unnoticed, given that Europe had already warned that the audit of Musk’s network payments this is misleading and violates the Digital Services Act.