Social Media Trends Series (1) : How APC Used BOTS on Social Media to deceive Nigerians
By Cavil Inwang

The 2015 election campaigns that secured victory for many APC candidates was arguably the most competitive, most vibrant and cost intensive; it also was the first to engage the use of the Social Media the most in the history of Electioneering in Nigeria.
Using Twitter, the APC’s mastery of propaganda coupled with a dedication to Social media use, gave the party the edge over an over-confident PDP. Although both parties made some effort, the APC’s was on an advanced scale.
Using social network visualization tools such as Flocker and Gephi, I have discovered a reliable way of detecting ‘BOT (ROBOT) accounts to examine the number of connections targeted Twitter accounts have with other users.
Bots have few connections, while real users tend to have far more. Using the software, I have been able to identify many cases of bots used to sabotage events and protests.

I have been watching the rise of Twitter BOTS in Nigeria and other countries since the 2015 elections, and have noticed fake accounts promoting the candidate who is now president of Nigeria.
A typical example was during the #AkwaIbomIsPDP campaign, which was a zoning agitation campaign aimed at analyzing the zoning formula of the Akwa Ibom Political system. This campaign recorded massive audience participation and trended on Twitter nation-wide. But also it attracted the attack of APC spammers who disrupted the campaign and they brought down contents; pictures and tweets that had the hashtag after 24 hours of its creation, using Twitter Bots. Pictures and tweets posted by thousands of users were deleted.

My experience as a social expert, have observed similar behaviors in Nigeria. In many cases, the BOTS are run by traditional spammer’s targeting popular hashtags such as #AkwaIbomIsPDP for commercial and also political purposes.
After 24 Hours this hashtag was attacked by Twitter BOTS which deleted every content with pictures shared by over thousands of twitter users, not even a retweet was found tagged by this hashtag.

Spam bot’s impact on trending topics is hard to quantify. Activists using their hashtags for a noble cause may observe activites going on under their hashtags not knowing they are early attepts at malicious interference. Before long, usually, the interference succeeds in bringing down the campaign.

Recently we had an experience of this. On the 12th Of May 2016, the Nigerian Social Media Community started several campaigns using different hashtags that saw themselves to the top: #OccupyNigeria , #FuelSubsidy and #145Naira were amazingly robust. these hashtags where trended by angry Nigerian Social Media Users who shared their views on why the president removed fuel subsidy.
3 Hours after they began, #SURE-p was seen Trending, soon Topping the chart and sending all earlier trending topics below. In my research I have experienced that just because a hashtag is trending doesn’t mean it is popular.

This #SURE-p carried content from the past Government’s asking Nigerians to contribute to the counter-campaign by sending content meant to disparage the former administration of Goodluck Jonathan, whom they accused of removing subsidy and failing to reinvest the savings.
#SURE-P scaled through because a combination of spammers and activists put a lot of effort into trending the topic.
Also politically motivated spam bots can pose real problems for activists, particularly when they flood existing hashtags with useless content. This is another tactic of theirs. These efforts can have material effects on organizers of these noble cause campaigns.
These bots made it more difficult for the information to reach the public. For example #AkwaIbomIsPDP activists used this hashtag to share photos but the hashtag was pushed off the Twitter trending list by another hashtag. A cursory research establishes that the replacing hashtag was created and promoted by bots, based on analyses of the connections between the bot accounts and other Twitter accounts.

The Akwa Ibom state governorship tribunal got a lot of attention from Nigeria’s social media community. Beginning July 14, 2015, details of the tribunal’s proceedings found their way via content to the different social mediums, mostly twitter, using #AkwaIbom.
Twitter has a spam-bot problem, as basically any user of Twitter can tell you. These fake accounts are often just worthless throwaway handles designed to help desperate users trump up their follower counts, or brands with dubious ethics promote their products. So normally when you think bot, you think “annoyance.”

Bots often degrade the user experience and they weaken Twitter’s legitimacy.
So the question remains: who is running these anti-activist bots? Gallagher says that because of their appearance during the last Presidential election campaigns in Nigeria, the bots can commonly be referred to as “President-bots” and the ongoing assumption among activists on Twitter is that the federal government and opposition are behind the current crop of bots.
I see social media as a tool for people to connect, learn and build relationships rather than a platform to create behavioural patterns that makes it possible tool in creating awareness for a political brand.
And contrary to the feeling that social media causes civic disengagements, statistics have shown that 66 per cent of social media users actively engage in political activism online.

An IT analyst, Mr. Matthew Oladipo, also said that the type of messages parties and politicians post on social media could either make or break unity among the electorate.
He said, “We have about 80 million Nigerian youths, many of whom are users of social media. As the platform can liberate, it can also break our unity. Politicians have to find a way to make social media foster unity in the country.
“They should learn not to post offensive or inciting statements because that is not what we need”.

Cavil Uduak Inwang is a Blogger/ Social Media Influencer and Consultant From Nigeria #AkwaIbom

Governments around the world use this strategy however it's success percentage is low. Many people are stuck in their views and no amount of convincing without physical evidence would change them. The amount of people whose views change from such exercise is so inconsequential it would make little to no difference in election polls.