Twitter publicly offers new labels to identify ‘good bots’

Last fall, Twitter introduced a new label that allows “good bots” to identify themselves on its service. After some user testing, the “good bot” label is now publicly available to all bot account holders.

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While the word “bot” tends to have negative connotations, Twitter has noticed that there are also useful bots that automatically tweet useful information on Twitter, such as COVID-19 updates, earthquake alerts, bills introduced in Congress, etc.

During testing, Twitter accounts that identify themselves as bots will display this information on their Twitter profiles. Below the account name and @username, a small bot icon appears next to the words “Automated by” followed by the name of the account operator. Meanwhile, Twitter’s introduction will detail the purpose of the bot.

When bots tweet, their automatic status will also be displayed on the user’s timeline. Twitter said the information will help users decide which accounts to follow, which ones to engage with, and which ones to trust.

In addition to “good bots”, many people automate their Twitter accounts in other ways — for example, using IFTTT integrations to push links. But Twitter doesn’t care much about this automated way of tweeting, it said — only pointing out that users should investigate any third-party apps their accounts use and make sure they follow Twitter’s rules.

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