Work

The lives and afterlives of community-created bots on Twitter: A minor history

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: This article presents a minor history of the beneficial community-created bots that once flourished on Twitter, showcasing their important but overlooked role in enhancing platform cultures, accessibility, and user experience. We present a typology of Twitter’s community-created bots, positioning them as marginal but active characters, tracing how and why they were crafted and co-evolved with, and in connection to, platform changes. The article offers a counter-narrative to the dominant discourse and association of bots with nefarious actors, showcasing the value of bot-making practices as forms of community-led innovation that have enriched social spaces through automation. In the context of current trends towards platform enclosure, the article argues for the continued importance of user innovation cultures in an AI-infused and potentially decentralised internet, proposing that we should not forget, overlook, or undermine the potential of creative, purposeful and community-initiated automation in fostering accessible, sociable, and joyful communication environments.

Source: Convergence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies

DOI: 10.1177/13548565251334087

Authors: Dominique Carlon, Jean Burgess, Kateryna Kasianenko

Institution: Queensland University of Technology

Language: English

Topic: Media and Digital Communication

Subfield: Computer Networks and Communications

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,650

Funder: Australian Research Council