Automating Popularity

Two years ago I wrote a program that logged into my Facebook account and pretended to be me. I wanted to test the hypothesis that automatic tools could make someone more popular.

If I could build a script that caused more friends to get in touch with me, then my hypothesis would be proven true. If, instead, the script had no effect on my popularity or was detected as a fraud by the people in my network, then my hypothesis would be proven false.

Before I carried out the experiment I studied so...