That their business is spreading pornographic material, selling memorabilia Trump or intimidate the masses of activists, the bots have become an indispensable part of Twitter.

But creating an army of bots is not a company that simple; of course, it may take a long time to manufacture a debacle account from nothing and make them credible enough to fool the viewer can be exhausting.
Where do you start to create a bot army of Twitter?
Although the process does not seem quite working today, a researcher found that by creating a script that mimics real users independently, and then spreads to other targets, was able to quickly generate a variety of passable account for real users.
"After a bit 'lost track of which ones were true and which mine."
He told Motherboard via Twitter message researcher Fionnbharr Davies.
When Davies tried for the first time a similar experiment at the end of 2012, he had not used the Twitter API, because it was thought to be monitored to prevent abuse.
But, apparently, using Twitter with a very old browsers like Internet Explorer 6, the site is presented in an HTML version easy to manipulate.
At the time, it called for Twitter users to complete a CAPTCHA during the process of creating a new account, so Davis decided to spend $ 10 for a breaking CAPTCHA service.
To handle the surge in registrations, created email accounts through a series of free service by email and a little 'more code.
It is not entirely clear whether this method can work even today - chances are good that the anti-fraud mechanisms Twitter have changed since 2012 - but the experiment fundamental idea remains valid.
The trick Davies is all in starting with a patient zero, or an account-original goal that his clone script, by subscribing to Twitter with a similar name, by collecting all the original pictures and location data that can then tweeting anything that the original account tweets.
It spreads quickly.
When the patient zero tweet something to someone or appoint another user in a post, the Clone script also that second account.
"So grows organically as people talk to each other," said Davies, in a recent blog post.
After a period of initial testing, Davies says he pointed the script against a group that does nothing but tweeting: the Beliebers [ie die-hard fan of Justin Bieber, ndt].
In no time at all, the network of fake users created by him would reach 3,000 accounts and then the same Davies stopped the botnet.
After a few months, probably when Twitter has noticed fake accounts, the total number has collapsed, he said.
"The last time I checked, the beginning of the year, there were still a thousand, survived for a while ', you can say," said Davies.
Motherboard found the active presence of at least some of the accounts that Davies had created, when this article was written.
One way to tell if an account is a bot is to look at the creation date; the user in question has only a few days old?
It is probably a bot.
But Davies 'approach bypasses at least in theory this problem: if let go long enough, the script builds an army with different duration lives account, making identification of the bot a bit' more complicated.
Davies' work may have been purely for research purposes, but bots and trolls have gained more and more political weight since his first experiment.
The Russian government uses its own jammers on social media for misinformation, however - it seems - with technical and manual methods.
But it is easy to see the attraction that self-assemble an army of bots could exercise.
"I've watched a couple of times over the years and have made a few changes, but would not be so difficult then starts all over again," said Davies.
A Twitter spokesman wrote to Motherboard via email that "Twitter is serious about fighting spam, and we want our users to enjoy the service we offer without having to worry about spam."
"Things will fall quickly just appear IA best," concluded Davies.

From Vice