FTC Sends Report to Congress on Social Media Bots and Deceptive Advertising

guest · Jul 18, 2020

FTC Reports to Congress on Social Media Bots and Deceptive Advertising
July 17, 2020
https://www.natlawreview.com/articl...s-social-media-bots-and-deceptive-advertising

The Federal Trade Commission recently sent a report to Congress on the use of social media bots in online advertising (the “Report”). The Report summarizes the market for bots, discusses how the use of bots in online advertising might constitute a deceptive practice, and outlines the Commission’s past enforcement work and authority in this area, including cases involving automated programs on social media that mimic the activity of real people.

Social media bots are simply bots that run on social media platforms, where they are common and have a wide variety of uses, just as with bots operating elsewhere. Often shortened to “social bots,” they are generally described in terms of their ability to emulate and influence humans.

The Department of Homeland Security describes them as programs that “can be used on social media platforms to do various useful and malicious tasks while simulating human behavior.”
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The online advertising industry has also taken steps to curb bot and influencer fraud, given the substantial harm it causes to legitimate advertisers.
According to the Report, the computing community is designing sophisticated social bot detection methods. Nonetheless, malicious use of social media bots remains a serious issue.

The FTC further states that when a business uses social media bots to mislead the public in this way, it could also harm honest competitors.
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FTC: FTC Sends Report to Congress on Social Media Bots and Deceptive Advertising

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FTC Sends Report to Congress on Social Media Bots and Deceptive Advertising

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