Twitter is closing in on a billion user accounts but as we looked at last month, nearly half of those accounts have never published a single tweet. And even if an account is active, that doesn’t mean it’s legit as a large number of these accounts are operated by social bots.

Plenty of automated accounts are easy to spot as they simply regurgitate news from a particular website or publish stock information. Others, however, are a bit more manipulative in nature and post questionable content such as fake news, rumors, spam, slander and the like. That said, how can you tell if a particular account is operated by a human or a computer?

Up to this point, the best solution was to simply use good judgment. Naturally, that doesn’t always work which is why a tool like the new Bot or Not app could be infinitely useful. Developed by researchers at Indiana University, the app takes a Twitter user handle and analyzes it against more than a thousand different criteria to determine the likelihood of it being run by a bot.

The app then gives a ranking on a 100-point scale based on patterns such as length of time between posts, the structure of the accounts’ networks and the content it posts.

Bot or Not is described as a work in progress. The team says they will continue to work to refine its algorithm as spammers will no doubt adjust their methods accordingly to circumvent the app’s analysis.

via Bot or Not will tell you if a Twitter account is run by a social bot – TechSpot.