The 2015 election campaigns that secured victory
for many APC candidates was arguably
the most competitive, most vibrant and cost intensive; it also was the first to
engage the use of the Social Media the most in the history of Electioneering in
Nigeria.
Using
Twitter, the APC’s mastery of propaganda coupled with a
dedication to Social media use, gave the party the edge over an over-confident
PDP. Although both parties made some effort, the APC’s was on an advanced scale.
Using social network visualization tools such as
Flocker and Gephi, I have discovered a reliable way of detecting ‘BOT (ROBOT) accounts
to examine the number of connections targeted Twitter accounts have with other
users.
Bots have few connections, while real users tend
to have far more. Using the software, I have been able to identify many cases
of bots used to sabotage events and protests.
I have been watching the rise of Twitter BOTS in
Nigeria and other countries since the 2015 elections, and have noticed fake
accounts promoting the candidate who is now president of Nigeria.
A typical example was during the #AkwaIbomIsPDP
campaign, which was a zoning agitation campaign aimed at analyzing the zoning formula
of the Akwa Ibom Political system. This campaign recorded massive audience
participation and trended on Twitter nation-wide. But also it attracted the
attack of APC spammers who disrupted the campaign and they brought down
contents; pictures and tweets that had the hashtag after 24 hours of its
creation, using Twitter Bots. Pictures and tweets posted by thousands of users
were deleted.
My experience as a social expert, have observed
similar behaviors in Nigeria. In many cases, the BOTS are run by traditional spammer’s
targeting popular hashtags such as #AkwaIbomIsPDP for commercial and also political purposes.
After 24 Hours this hashtag was attacked by
Twitter BOTS which deleted every content with pictures shared by over thousands
of twitter users, not even a retweet was found tagged by this hashtag.
Spam bot’s impact on trending topics is hard to quantify. Activists using
their hashtags for a noble cause may observe activites going on under their
hashtags not knowing they are early attepts at malicious interference. Before long,
usually, the interference succeeds in bringing down the campaign.
Recently we had an experience of this. On the 12th
Of May 2016, the Nigerian Social Media Community started several campaigns
using different hashtags that saw themselves to the top: #OccupyNigeria ,
#FuelSubsidy and #145Naira were amazingly robust. these hashtags where trended
by angry Nigerian Social Media Users who shared their views on why the
president removed fuel subsidy.
3 Hours after they began, #SURE-p was seen
Trending, soon Topping the chart and sending all earlier trending topics below.
In my research I have experienced that just because a hashtag is trending doesn’t
mean it is popular.
This
#SURE-p carried content from the past Government’s asking Nigerians to
contribute to the counter-campaign by sending content meant to disparage the
former administration of Goodluck Jonathan, whom they accused of removing
subsidy and failing to reinvest the savings.
#SURE-P
scaled through because a combination of spammers and
activists put a lot of effort into trending the topic.
Also politically motivated spam bots can pose
real problems for activists, particularly when they flood existing hashtags
with useless content. This is another tactic of theirs. These efforts can have material
effects on organizers of these noble cause campaigns.
These bots made it more difficult for the information
to reach the public.
For example #AkwaIbomIsPDP activists used this hashtag to share photos but the hashtag was pushed off the Twitter
trending list by another hashtag. A cursory research establishes that the
replacing hashtag was created and promoted by bots, based on analyses of the
connections between the bot accounts and other Twitter
accounts.
The Akwa Ibom state governorship tribunal got a
lot of attention from Nigeria’s social media community. Beginning July 14, 2015, details of the tribunal’s proceedings found their
way via content to the different social mediums, mostly twitter, using
#AkwaIbom.
Twitter has a spam-bot problem, as basically any
user of Twitter can tell you. These fake accounts are often just worthless
throwaway handles designed to help desperate users trump up their follower
counts, or brands with dubious ethics promote their products. So normally when
you think bot, you think “annoyance.”
Bots often degrade the user experience and they
weaken Twitter’s legitimacy.
So the question remains: who is running these
anti-activist bots? Gallagher says that because of their appearance during the
last Presidential election campaigns in Nigeria, the bots can commonly be
referred to as “President-bots” and the ongoing assumption among activists on
Twitter is that the federal government and opposition are behind the current
crop of bots.
I see
social media as a tool for people to connect, learn and build relationships
rather than a platform to create behavioural patterns that makes it possible
tool in creating awareness for a political brand.
And
contrary to the feeling that social media causes civic disengagements,
statistics have shown that 66 per cent of social media users actively engage in
political activism online.
An IT
analyst, Mr. Matthew Oladipo, also said that the type of messages parties and
politicians post on social media could either make or break unity among the
electorate.
He said,
“We have about 80 million Nigerian youths, many of whom are users of social
media. As the platform can liberate, it can also break our unity. Politicians
have to find a way to make social media foster unity in the country.
“They
should learn not to post offensive or inciting statements because that is not
what we need”.
Cavil Uduak
Inwang is a Blogger/ Social Media Influencer and Consultant From Nigeria
#AkwaIbom
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