Acting like a bot as a defiance of platform power: Examining YouTubers’ patterns of ‘inauthentic’ behaviour on Twitter during COVID-19

Abstract

This article examines YouTubers’ ‘bot like’ behaviour on Twitter and conceptualises it as a defiance of platform power in delimiting the boundaries of ‘authenticity’. This entrepreneurial capture of ‘botness’ is understudied and deserves attention. We focus on a platform with a clear monetisation scheme, YouTube, and on patterns of ‘inauthentic’ behaviour in how people shared YouTube videos on Twitter during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic (February–May 2020). The global coronavirus crisis forced social media platforms to take unprecedented (mostly automated) steps to moderate content and to introduce new policies on ‘appropriate’ conduct, which we argue may have an impact on emerging social media content creators’ attempts to boost visibility online.