Elite‑School and Female Bots Win Follows

Researchers created 80 'PhD student' bot accounts on EconTwitter varying gender, race, and school prestige, then tracked follow-backs from 6,920 users. Follow-backs were 25% higher for female vs male, 21% higher for top‑school vs lower‑ranked, and 12% higher for White vs Black, with the race gap persisting even at top schools. The result quantifies platform‑level networking advantages that complicate simple discrimination narratives. — If online professional networks quietly reward prestige and gender while disadvantaging Black students, institutions and media should rethink how platform norms shape early‑career opportunity and claim 'equity' gains.