The Surprising Usefulness of Vaccine Bots

Reviled on the internet, some bots serve a useful purpose—from Biden jokes, to public art, to getting vaccine appointments.

Symbol for a chatbot or social bot and algorithms, program code in the backgroundPhotographer: Patrick Daxenbichler/iStockphoto

Hey all, it’s Kurt. I’ve spent most of the last three years thinking that bots on social media are a bad thing. Can you blame me? Companies like Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. routinely announce how many bots they remove for safety and security reasons, and a lot of election and harassment problems seem to tie back to bots in some shape or form.

But I’ve had a change of heart in recent weeks. Put simply: All of these vaccine bots seem So. Darn. Helpful.