A Surfshark study found that most people struggle to tell bots from humans online, correctly identifying only 40% of AI-generated comments in a social media test. Polite, friendly, and logical-sounding bots were the hardest to detect, making them a greater concern for manipulation and privacy than hostile accounts. #Surfshark
Keypoints
- Participants identified only 40% of bots in a social media setting.
- Positive, agreeable bots were harder to spot than negative ones.
- Serious topics led to more bot misses and more false accusations of real users.
- Bots that avoided heavy emoji use were much harder to detect.
- Threads and X users performed better than TikTok and Facebook users, while older participants struggled most.
Read More: https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2026/09/18/social-media-bot-detection-study/