Jon Ronson visits web analyst Tim Hwang (Web Ecology Project), who with colleagues developed bots for the social media website twitter. The bots generated random tweets in an experiment to see if they could steer the conversation amongst real human tweeters.

Jon Ronson's Escape and Control

Twitter Bots

Internationally acclaimed journalist and filmmaker Jon Ronson (Adventures with Extremists, The Men Who Stare At Goats and New York Times Bestseller The Psychopath Test) turns his attentions to the Internet. Specifically, those people who try to control it -- for good or bad. Escape and Control: Stories About People Trying To Control The Internet It can sometimes feel like we're creating a new kind of democracy online, where we control and regulate each other instead of being told how to behave by those in authority. But there are people out there who don't like this idea at all. So they want to come up with ways to control it. Sometimes maybe even secret ways... With searing interviews, unravelling mysteries and some great fun along the way, Jon Ronson sets off on an adventure that may mean you'll never look at your mouse in the same way again.