RIP To The Best Bots On Twitter
Álex Barredo, who runs @BigTechAlert, told BuzzFeed News he’s open to paying a small fee to keep the popular bot running, but not if it costs $100 a month. He also has other options. He’s aware that most of the actual spam bots don’t even use the API to operate (which means charging for API access isn’t really going to wipe out spam), so one option he’s considering is to rework the bot so it doesn’t need the API. He’s also considering either open-sourcing it or moving it to its own website or a different platform.
“It was a fun thing, a thing that actually provided Twitter with more value,” Barredo told BuzzFeed News.
Some bots are just pleasant and surprising additions to your timeline. Joe Schoech of Vermont runs @_restaurant_bot (random photos of restaurants from Google Maps), @_weather_bot_ (current weather conditions from randomized places around the world), @everygoodfella (screenshots of every second of the movie Goodfellas), and a few others. He also doesn’t plan on paying and is considering moving them all to Mastodon.
“It’s over,” he told BuzzFeed News. “Bots are maybe the best part about Twitter! I follow a ton of them, they’re cool and weird, and I will miss them. Fuck Elon, I never liked that guy.”
Neil Freeman, who runs @everylotnyc, a bot that tweets photos of each lot on Google Street View from tax records, shares a similar sentiment. “Any amount of money would be too much to pay to post on a site that doesn’t even ban Nazis,” he told BuzzFeed news.
John Emerson, a designer and programmer in Brooklyn, runs 24 bots, mostly ones that tweet out images from the collections of various art museums. He told BuzzFeed News if he has to pay to keep the bots running, he’ll abandon them. “I had ideas for other more active and interactive bots, but it’s pretty clear Twitter is no longer a place for that kind of experimentation or innovation,” he said.
Other bots are simply just fun. @ca_dmv_bot tweets out vanity plates that were rejected by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, along with the DMV’s reasoning. The bot’s creation was inspired by a Los Angeles magazine article about rejected plates, which revealed that they’re often incredibly funny.
Álex Barredo, who runs @BigTechAlert, told BuzzFeed News he’s open to paying a small fee to keep the popular bot running, but not if it costs $100 a month. He also has other options. He’s aware that most of the actual spam bots don’t even use the API to operate…
