bots-as-digital-infrapunctures/content/Section 4 - Bot Logic/4-bot-behaviour.md

Title: Bot behaviour
Slug: 04-s4-bot-behaviour
Date: 2020-11-01 12:04
Summary: As programmable objects bots have particular action modes.

As programmable objects bots have particular *action modes*. 

Below some examples (although this is a non-exhaustive list).

- *repetition*: bots can be run repeatedly
- *condition*: bots are often written in response to a particular condition
- *iteration*: bots can be used multiple times
- *memory*: bots can rely on a database
- *tempo*: bots can operate at a specific time frame as described by the programmer

Of course, these action modes can also be executed by humans. 

It is by no means surprising that many Twitter users are mistaken for bots, or that the term itself has attained a derogatory meaning. However, an interesting phenomenon can be observed on platforms such as Twitter, where human users have adopted a type of bot behaviour to create networks of dissent and to push activist counter-narratives. 

Such a moment happened recently on Dutch Twitter. In response to the Black Lives Matter protests, extreme right wing politician Geert Wilders posted an image on Twitter on June 5th 2020 using the hashtag #ZwartePietMatters.[^zwartepiet] Following this post, a wave of ... from the k-pop community ... [mb: expand]

[mb: do we want to add one more page, in which we conclude how *bot logic* is useful as a term?]

## Footnotes

[^zwartepiet]: Zwarte Piet is a ...