A couple of times over the last few years a photo of me has been used as a Twitter bot. I didn’t think much of it. I figured there was nothing I can do other than report for spam.
To be honest, my first thought was “you’ve made it” then it happened over a handful of times and it was kinda unsettling. Have I been targeted? What is going on here and why does this keep happening?
Yesterday, Keri sent me this article from FastCompany “Who’s That Woman In The Twitter Bot Profile? by Jason Feifer. I got a couple Tweets about it too.
@casiestewart remember how there was a twitter bot of your Sunshine girl pic? Seems like you weren’t the only one! bit.ly/P2cemr
They’re sometimes called “bimbots”–the army of Twitter bots with pretty profile pictures. Who are the women pictured in those photos? This is the story of the quest to find out.”
Omg, it’s a thing. I read on…
“After dozens of searches, a pattern emerged: Most bot photos had a long digital tail, having been posted on dozens of sketchy porn sites or blogs devoted to the barely legal. Occasionally, I’d be able to track a photo back to what seemed like an original source–like when a bot’s photo showed up alongside many others of the same woman, all posted to the fratboy site Barstool Sports. The site claimed her name is Aurora. But when I reached out, as was always the case, nobody cared to explain where the photos came from.
…I tracked two bots back to the 2009 SUNshine Girls calendar, a lingerie showcase produced by the Toronto Sun. (I guess newspapers have to make money somehow.) The calendar only offered the models’ first names, and the paper’s photo editor wouldn’t connect me with them. But after a little Internet stalking–this is how reporting works, people!–I found a connection.”
Crazy eh? My photo is from the Toronto Sun as a SUNshine Girl in 2001. It was October, I won a bikni contest about a month earlier and before I knew it, I graced the special page at the back of the paper. (It’s not actually special.) If you haven’t seen it a simple Google will tell you. The photo that comes up first is from Raymi’s blog. I bet the Sun totally sold my photo. DAMN YOU JERKS!
Know anyone else this happened to? LMK!
In Other News:
- One of my videos on CoralTV is being promoted by YouTube this week. Me! TV on the Internet is the future, and maybe after that, Internet on the TV. Whooaaaaa. See it here.
YouTube features
@casiestewart ‘s iPhone video on@coraltvViews are up. Way to go Casie and big thanks to@youtubeyoutube.com/watch?v=D4tw16…
- My IMDB profile & resume have been updated at imdb.com
- This Skydiving video is SO RAD! 138 Skydivers break a world record. I so wanna jump again. My less exciting, video is here.
In life and blogging you never know what you’re gonna get ain’t that the truth.
@raymitheminx thank god it’s not a gross photo! lol
Re: CORAL show being promoted awesome news for you! Congrats.
Re: photo – yes I bet they sold it. The internet is great but I had an instance of writing something for a journal and they didn’t tell me it was going to go on the internet. I was surprised. Had pretty personal info. Only thing of mine that’s ended up anywhere are just stories from my blog.
argh… I had my photo show up as a bot photo last year and it was really creepy.
Also had a gal start using my photo as her online dating photo out in Victoria, BC. Only found out when a friend saw it and was a little confused as he knew I was still in Toronto.
Oh, the internet.
@twitter-74524165:disqus whoa a bot and dating profile, that’s the creep!
Hey Casie,
Thanks for linking to my story. Sorry to hear you’re a victim too! The bots seem to be taking a liking to Sunshine Girl photos. Amanda from this story wasn’t the only Sunshine Girl I found as a bot; she just happened to be the only one I could figure out how to contact. Maybe it’s worth notifying the Toronto Sun, though I have no idea what they could do about it.
@twitter-268944886:disqus I bet there are a bunch of Sunshine bots. I couldn’t believe how many fake accounts mine was used for!