Twitter trialling "bot" account identification

I run lots of automated Twitter accounts - "bots" in common parlance. But there's no way for people to know that these are automated accounts.

This leads to slightly odd situations where people try to have conversations with them.

Colours by @edent

@RGB_Colours
Automated

"Dark Slate Blue"
#483d8b pic.x.com/vi2novdlgr

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waaaaahat @ Spoutible

@waaaaahat

Replying to @RGB_Colours@RGB_Colours It sure looks like a shade of purple to me. 🤔

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In a recent blog post - Rethinking Twitter Verification - I mused that it would be great if Twitter let you mark specific accounts as robots.

Terence Eden is on Mastodon

@edent

@Nevali @SophieWarnes @katebevan if I were in charge (which I'm not) there would be various types of ticks.
🤖 is a bot
🆔 proved their legal identity
🏭 is run by a brand
⚖ is run by a government department
👮 Official law enforcement
😎 Celebrity
And so on.

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Well! That day is finally here! Some of my bots are now officially marked as such!

This is, as I understand it, a beta test. We'll see how users and developers react to this.

What Is It Like to Be a Bat Bot?

Automated accounts - where a human user isn't manually generating all the replies - are incredibly popular. People follow their local train line to find out about delays, or follow bots which Tweet the weather, or who won the sportball. Do those bots only give automated information? Do people expect to be able to have a conversation with them? Do they dream of electronic sheep?

Follow my bots

Here are my bots which have been given the Twitter bot logo:

Flood Forecast

A bot which lets you know the flood risk for the coming days (England and Wales only)

UK Flood Forecast

@FloodForecast
Automated

Significant inland flooding impacts are possible but not expected on Wednesday and Thursday. The overall flood risk for the next five days is LOW.

…od-warning-information.service.gov.uk/5-day-flood-ri… pic.x.com/zmdgg4q71m

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My Solar Panels

At sunset every day, you'll get a graph of how much electricity our roof has generated

Edent's Solar Panels

@Edent_Solar
Automated

Today I generated 15.07kWh of solar electricity. pic.x.com/usamopxqb1

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UK Earthquakes

Very occasionally, we get small earthquakes in the UK. This lets you know when they happen

The @UK_Quakes bot was deleted.

RGB Colours

A very silly bot which gives you a random colour to brighten your day

Colours by @edent

@RGB_Colours
Automated

"Red (Munsell)"
#f2003c pic.x.com/kklhrbeppi

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Open Benches

Our crowd-sourced psychogeography project Tweets every time a photo of a memorial bench is uploaded.

OpenBenches.org

@openbenches
Automated

IN MEMORY OF THE LATE
COUNCILIOR H. J. B. (BEN) WATKINS OBE
PRESENTED BY THE LABOUR MOVEMENT THROUGHOUT WALES IN RECOGNITION OF
HIS OUTSTANDING PUBLIC SERVICE
openbenches.org/bench/21380
CC BY-SA 4.0
℅ @StroudieDr pic.x.com/plrbiuuswt

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Thanks

Huge thanks to the @TwitterDev team for giving me early access to this scheme. You can read more about the trial.