Twitter announced that “Good Bots,” the feature that labels useful automated accounts, also known as bots, is now officially available for every bot developer on the platform. Bot developers can label their bots with a robot symbol next to an ‘Automated by’ tag that features the username of the bot’s developer. The new label will appear beneath the usernames of automated accounts that have it enabled. According to Twitter, the bot labeling will help users better identify ‘more of the good bots and their helpful tweets.’
The Good Bots label will help you distinguish useful bots, such as a bot that alerts you to earthquakes in your region, a COVID-19 bot that tells you what the vaccine availability is in your area, or an art bot that will share incredible pieces of art with you. Although the Good Bots labeling is helpful, Oliver Stewart outlines that the new bot labeling feature is ‘not the same thing as the blue verified check marks.’
In addition to the above, Stewart said, “We’re not trying to say ‘this bot is good’ in a quality sense, because that is really subjective. We’re just trying to say that this is an automated account that we don’t think is doing any harm, and that the owner wants to be honest with you—let you know that it’s automated. No one should be going around telling you who to trust and who not to trust. Our goal is to give people the tools to make those decisions for themselves.“
Do you follow some of these “good bots” on Twitter? If so, which ones are your favorite?
