In an Internet-connected world, governments have to worry about a new kind of counterfeiting—not of money, but of people. Researchers estimate that about half of the traffic on the Internet is due not to humans, but rather “bots,” automated computer programs designed to simulate humans. The scale of the problem is staggering. By 2018, Facebook had over two billion legitimate users—but in the same year deleted even more fake accounts: nearly three billion. Some bots act as information providers, pushing out their messages, usually for advertising purposes but occasionally in service of
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