Akiva Krauthamer

21 Jan 2016

NYPD edits is a great example of a powerful twitter bot. The core idea is that the bot will tweet a link to any edit made to Wikipedia from the IP address of the NYPD. At this point in time the bot has only made 7 tweets. Quality over quantity. What I like so much about this bot is that every tweet has depth and potential for meaning outside of a quick laugh. Knowing that there was a human on the other end of the bot (the person making the edit) and knowing the cultural status of that persons surroundings (a police station) draws me in and makes me spend time with each tweet. I’m assuming that the NYPD know about this bot and have stopped editing Wikipedia from work. Although this sorta breaks the bot, it also points out the power that twitter bots can have over the real world.

This bot was made by John Emerson.