Social Pro Daily

Two-Thirds of U.S. Adults Know About Bots, and They Don’t Particularly Like Them

80 percent of respondents to a Pew Research Center survey believe they are mostly used for bad purposes

Closeup of 1950s toy tin robot on dark wood background — 92 percent of U.S. adults are opposed to the use of bots to spread fake news CookiesForDevo/iStock

Bots need to work on their image, according to a new survey from Pew Research Center.

Pew found that 66 percent of U.S. adults know about social media bots—which it defined as “accounts that operate on their own, without human involvement, to post and interact with others on social media sites”—but just 16 percent have heard a lot about them.

Separating it by age, 78 percent of respondents 18 through 29 and 76 percent of those 30 through 49 had heard about bots, compared with just 58 percent of those 50 through 64 and 49 percent of respondents 65 and older.

78 percent of respondents with college degrees had heard about bots, versus 55 percent with only high school educations.

Democrats