Tim Hwang
How many of your Facebook friends are robots? Maybe more than you think. New research from the University of British Columbia suggests that users of online social networks like Facebook are surprisingly susceptible to infiltration by socialbots — computer programs designed to pass themselves off as human beings.
This week on Spark, we’ll play Nora’s interview with Tim Hwang, a socialbot researcher and the organizer of a socialbot coding competition. They’ll discuss some of the techniques socialbots use to mimic us, and how we can tell the difference between bots and humans. You can hear the full, uncut interview below, or download the MP3. [runs 18:14]
Play audio:
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Technical question: I'm curious to know why the format of the file names has changed. It was useful to be able to see the name of the interviewee (or, on occasion, the interview topic) at a glance, just by looking at the filename. This new format is, well, less useful, I'm afraid. I hope that you are able to go back to the old format.
I agree that the filenames are less useful.
We used to upload bonus MP3 files directly, and we had more control over the filenames. Now, we\’re uploading through CBC\’s in-house podcast publishing system, which doesn\’t allow us this level of control.
More details here: http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2011/11/important-changes…