2.3.10. Automation in Social Media

Now that we have looked at what automation is and seen one example of automation on social media (a Reddit bot), let’s consider some different ways automation shows up on social media:

External Programs

Some automation on social media is done with programs that are separate from the social media platform.

Bots

Bots are computer programs that act through a social media account. We will talk about them more in the next (Chapter 3).

There are also various applications that are made to help users interact with social media. For example, there are social media manager programs that help people schedule posts and let multiple people use the same account (particularly useful if you are something like a news organization).

Data Gathering

Various groups want to gather data from social media, such as advertisers and scientists. This data is gathered and analyzed with computer programs. We will cover these programs later, particularly in Chapter 8: Data Mining.

The Social Media Platform

Social media platforms themselves also have many places where automation occurs.

Code

Social media platforms have code that automates many of the tasks it takes to keep a social media platform running. These are things like the code that saves and loads the data on the platform (ses Chapter 4: Data), the code that displays that data to users (including the visual layout) and gives users ways of interacting with the platform, the code that decides which posts a user sees (see Chapter 12: Recommendation Algorithms).

Policies

Finally, social media platforms have various policies on how they will operate, such as what people are allowed to have for user names, or what behaviors will get you banned from the platform. The policies are often partly supported by code on the social media platform, but also done by actions of humans, such as content moderators (chapter 15). These humans are acting as human computers to enforce the policies.