Do you ever get the feeling like you could be interacting with an AI or perhaps the number of likes on a post seems way too inaccurate? 64% of internet traffic in 2021 came from bots so let’s talk about what that means and what the future holds.

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What is bot traffic and why does it matter? - https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/bots/what-is-bot-traffic/
Bot traffic could be anything from a fake social media account to a click farm to algorithmic trading, to fake web traffic, to malicious hackers. Bots can do a lot of things, but you’ll typically find them doing simple tasks like Facebook’s feed fetcher bot to pull previews for the feed. This bot alone makes up a huge portion of internet traffic and is an example of a good bot. But even in a way, a good bot can be bad because it can act in the wrong way or simply overwhelm smaller websites. Most bot traffic comes from Amazon Web Service and Microsoft Azure which are two massive public cloud systems.

There are several reasons why bot traffic is so important to recognize:
• The majority of trading is algorithmic and done by bots.
• The majority of trading volume on exchanges are made up by bots – Forbes reported as much as 93% on some exchanges in 2018
• Bots run the majority of moderation and censorship programs.
• Bots make up the majority of the internet – aka you don’t know what’s real since more is fake than real.
• The percent of bad bots are increasing.
• Bots can heavily influence and skew data to almost entirely negate the accuracy of online research studies, most notably in healthcare related studies.
• The perception of public consensus and sentiment online is completely fictional.
Let’s take an example scenario. Very important breaking news is shared. This new is against the mainstream narrative so it is flagged, mass disliked, and mass commented on saying things like “fake,” “lies,” “this is written by a bot” (ironically). The point is that with bots, any opinions formed by community consensus and not by directly consuming the content itself will result in a distorted reality. This is the reality today. Framing, cutting clips, not actually showing the clip or image and telling you what happened or what it depicts. YouTube removing dislikes, auto removing comments, etc., the list goes on and on.
The recent plummet in stocks and crypto could just simply the mass majority of trading that is done by bots that happened to catch a trend and follow it with a cascading effect with futures liquidations.

Algorithmic Trading:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/yoavvilner/2018/11/24/all-there-is-to-know-about-bots-role-in-cryptocurrency-trading/?sh=7ac12a6a4fc3
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/13/death-of-the-human-investor-just-10-percent-of-trading-is-regular-stock-picking-jpmorgan-estimates.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/05/sell-offs-could-be-down-to-machines-that-control-80percent-of-us-stocks-fund-manager-says.html
https://blog.quantinsti.com/growth-future-algorithmic-trading/
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4230982-algo-trading-dominates-80-percent-of-stock-market
https://therobusttrader.com/what-percentage-of-trading-is-algorithmic/
https://www.sec.gov/files/Algo_Trading_Report_2020.pdf
https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/algorithmic-trading-market

Below are several references to research reports, studies, and reviews of those studies on bot traffic mainly focused on 2020 and 2021:
2012-2016
https://www.statista.com/statistics/670782/bot-traffic-share/
2020 – 41%
https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2021/04/13/2209196/35210/en/The-Pandemic-of-the-Internet-Imperva-Research-Labs-Reveals-Bot-Traffic-Climbs-to-Record-High-in-2020.html
https://www.jmir.org/2020/10/e23021/
https://www.imperva.com/blog/bad-bot-report-2021-the-pandemic-of-the-internet/
2021 - 64%
https://www.barracuda.com/bot-threat-report
https://www.digit.fyi/two-thirds-of-internet-traffic-is-now-made-up-of-bots/

Do you think 64% of the internet is made up of bots? Do you think it will keep increasing? Have you ever not been sure if you were interacting with a bot? Let me know what you think about this in the comments below and don’t forget to subscribe!

*Disclaimer: This is not financial advice and is purely for entertainment purposes. What you see, hear, or read is my personal opinion, and any statements made are based on my views and should not be misconstrued as fact. My crypto portfolio may or may not be simulated*

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