When Does the Public Become Suspicious of Bots? Demand-Side Evidence from Botometer Query Logs

Abstract

We study private bot-checking behavior from the demand side: when people suspect an account is automated, whom they suspect, and what follows. Using Botometer's server-side query logs, the most widely used bot-detection service, we treat each query as a behavioural trace of suspicion. We analyze over 1 million public checks of Twitter accounts from 2020 to 2023, enriched with 3.2 billion tweets from the contemporaneous 1% public stream. Collective suspicion spikes with platform crises, most sharply around the 2022 Musk-Twitter bot dispute. Checked accounts are older and more prolific, have more followers, and post promotional, political, and crypto content. Accounts that draw collective suspicion have higher bot scores and are more likely to be suspended. Bot-related public attention and Botometer activity are elevated during the same broad periods, although their short-run fluctuations are largely uncoupled. Public feedback focuses on first-person identity claims for humans, and evidence-based arguments citing posting rate, political content, and cross-account coordination for bots and cyborgs. Bot suspicion thus constitutes a mass, distributed form of platform auditing that tracks meaningful signals of automation, establishing audit-tool query logs as a novel lens on public responses to platform manipulation.